[gentoo-user] Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[gentoo-user] Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[James]

Hello,

I seem to have an adventure every time I set up a dual boot
laptop with Windows and Gentoo.


The last time I found out that HP will ship you an OEM install
CD so after formatting the hard drive (deleting the windows
hidden partition) you can put windows on any partition you want
and not have the MS running partition conditioning on the linux
and grub sectors. Grub is the bootloader/manager. I do not
trust MS, but, we still have critical windows software we 
have to use from time to time.


Sony does not offer such a OEM CD. They say I can purchase
the Vista CD at retail prices (not fond of this option).
Sony does purport to have a good web site for individual device
drivers at esupport.sony.com, although I have not used it (yet).
Sony also said that XP will run on this new VIAO 
(model PCG-384L) laptop. I not so sure Vista is better than
XP.

I want grub as the bootloader. Right now my best option seems  to
be: purchase a copy of vista or XP from the local university ($30)
and install it on a new partition and use Grub as the bootloader.
Install Gentoo too.  


Have I missed anything? Any other comments or insight is most
welcome.


James

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Re: [gentoo-user] Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Julian Simioni]

On 7/19/07, James <wireless@tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I seem to have an adventure every time I set up a dual boot
> laptop with Windows and Gentoo.
>
>
> The last time I found out that HP will ship you an OEM install
> CD so after formatting the hard drive (deleting the windows
> hidden partition) you can put windows on any partition you want
> and not have the MS running partition conditioning on the linux
> and grub sectors. Grub is the bootloader/manager. I do not
> trust MS, but, we still have critical windows software we
> have to use from time to time.
>
>
> Sony does not offer such a OEM CD. They say I can purchase
> the Vista CD at retail prices (not fond of this option).
> Sony does purport to have a good web site for individual device
> drivers at esupport.sony.com, although I have not used it (yet).
> Sony also said that XP will run on this new VIAO
> (model PCG-384L) laptop. I not so sure Vista is better than
> XP.
>
> I want grub as the bootloader. Right now my best option seems  to
> be: purchase a copy of vista or XP from the local university ($30)
> and install it on a new partition and use Grub as the bootloader.
> Install Gentoo too.
>
>
> Have I missed anything? Any other comments or insight is most
> welcome.
>
>
> James
>
> --
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Depending on what software you need to run, running Windows in VMware
can work quite well. I assume that Sony gave you a restore disc that
will erase everything and restore your computer to its original state.
You MAY be able to use this disc to install windows on a VMware
virtual machine. However I have a feeling the restore disc will not be
happy about installing in an environment that does not match the
hardware of your laptop. It's worth a shot though.

Julian
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[gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[James]

Julian Simioni <spectre256 <at> gmail.com> writes:


> Depending on what software you need to run, running Windows in VMware
> can work quite well.

VMware is not an option. We use the laptops for embedded systems development.
Most Semiconductor companies  still require you use Windows for their intrisic
Integrated Development Environments for firmware development on their products.
Furthermore, using low level connected devices such as BDM, JTAG and In-circuit
emulators require a full Windows OS.


Vmware may work in some cases, but often it's not supported by the aforementioned
vendors, so you are stuck with XP or Vista, hardware dongles and such........


thanks for the suggestion.


James 


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Re: [gentoo-user] Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Albert Hopkins]

Last year I bought a Dell Inspiron that did not come with any software
cd.  The drive, came with XP pre-installed as well as a "recovery"
partition that you could use to restore the XP partition to factory.  Of
course it runs Gentoo.  What I did was:

     1. Boot with a live cd (or better yet RIPLinux on a USB stick).
     2. Back up MBR, parition table, and partitions to DVD, network or
        external drive.
     3. Use ntfsresize to shrink the XP partition, make sure it still
        boots.
     4. Use the space left over from ntfsresize to create
        partition(s)/install Gentoo.
     5. Install GRUB on the MBR.

Worked for me.  YMMV.  I could have also removed the "utility" partition
to get more space, since I do have a backup.  But I left it on there as
I don't really need the space.

--
Albert W. Hopkins

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[gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[James]

Albert Hopkins <marduk <at> gentoo.org> writes:




>      1. Boot with a live cd (or better yet RIPLinux on a USB stick).

RIP Linux looks very cool. No experience with this but, hey I'm going to
try and use this...

I'm not sure if Vista versus XP make any difference. In a recent post
on this list about grub  one reader  posted about the fact that with
Vista the boot.ini file is gone. I'm not sure that this effects your
proposed method?


>      2. Back up MBR, parition table, and partitions to DVD, network or
>         external drive.
>      3. Use ntfsresize to shrink the XP partition, make sure it still
>         boots.

Hmmm, I must have missed something. In step one you said to boot via
a liveCD or RIP linux. Now in step 3 you say to use ntfsresize. Is it
available on the liveCD (I never used it during an install)? 
A few more details on this step would be useful.

>      4. Use the space left over from ntfsresize to create
>         partition(s)/install Gentoo.

OK, at this point I'm still using the liveCD or does RIP linux
have tools for access into fdisk or such? (No experience with RIPLinux)

>      5. Install GRUB on the MBR.

> Worked for me.  YMMV.  I could have also removed the "utility" partition
> to get more space, since I do have a backup.  But I left it on there as
> I don't really need the space.

If I thought that vista would not use something in the hidden partition
that would effect the linux partitions (such as Vista thinking those
linux partitions are corrupt and need conditioning or reformatting) then
I might be inclined to leave the hidden Vista restoration partition. But
it could not be used (could it) as it would just restore the original
factory partitioning scheme......?


Not so sure about this...

James




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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 17:58 +0000, James wrote:
> Albert Hopkins <marduk <at> gentoo.org> writes:

[...]
> 
> I'm not sure if Vista versus XP make any difference. In a recent post
> on this list about grub  one reader  posted about the fact that with
> Vista the boot.ini file is gone. I'm not sure that this effects your
> proposed method?
> 
I've no experience with Vista, so I can't say for sure.  But it
shouldn't make any difference since boot.ini is used by the Windows
bootloader and we aren't using that (we're replacing it with GRUB).

> 
> >      2. Back up MBR, parition table, and partitions to DVD, network or
> >         external drive.
> >      3. Use ntfsresize to shrink the XP partition, make sure it still
> >         boots.
> 
> Hmmm, I must have missed something. In step one you said to boot via
> a liveCD or RIP linux. Now in step 3 you say to use ntfsresize. Is it
> available on the liveCD (I never used it during an install)? 
> A few more details on this step would be useful.
> 

Sorry when I said boot via liveCD I wasn't specifically referring to the
Gentoo LiveCD, but "a"/"any" liveCD.  The one I always use is RIPLinux.
It's great for this kind of stuff.. but I actually use it on a USB stick
as opposed to a physical CD.  RIPLinux comes with all kinds of stuff:
ntfs/lvm/raid tools, partimage, [g]parted, qemu, mt, mtools, network
clients, cd/dvd recording software, ndiswrapper, alsa, boot-from-grub,
X11, etc. etc).  Fit's on a 128MB USB stick and loads right into RAM.
It's awesome.  You'll never look at another live cd for
recovery/administration again.  Don't tell anyone I said this, but it's
also great for installing Gentoo ;-)

> >      4. Use the space left over from ntfsresize to create
> >         partition(s)/install Gentoo.
> 
> OK, at this point I'm still using the liveCD or does RIP linux
> have tools for access into fdisk or such? (No experience with RIPLinux)

Yes.  Again, RIPLinux has *everything*

I'll be more specific what I did (paraphrased for simplicity.  Again,
I've never done this with Vista.. There may be differences.  Might wanna
check with a Vista user.

When I got my laptop, I booted it with RIPLinux.  The laptop drive
looked like this

+------+
| MBR  |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda1 | Dell Utility Partition  |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda2 | Windows XP              |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda3 | Rescue Partition        |
+------+------------------------ +

First thing I did is copy the partition table.  sfdisk is a good one for
this.  I had an external USB hard drive that I connected to the laptop
and mounted.  I copied the partition table to it.

# sfdisk -d /dev/sda > /mnt/usbdrive/Inspiron_1505_factory.sfdisk

Next I made a copy of the MBR:

# dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/usbdrive/Inspiron_1505_factory.mbr \
  bs=446 count=1

I also backed up the Utility and Rescue partitions.  I don't think I
backed up the Windows one, but you could.  Use dd and either copy to an
external drive or dvdrecord (may want to pipe it through bzip2).

# dd if=/dev/sda1 |bzip2 \
  > /mnt/usbdrive/Inspiron_1505_factory_Dell_Utility.sda1.bz2

# dd if=/dev/sda3 |bzip2 \
  > /mnt/usbdrive/Inspiron_1505_factory_Rescue.sda3.bz2

...Utility.sda1.bz2 turned out to be ~2.8GB and ...Rescure.sda2.bz2 is
about 3.4 GB. So they could easily fit on a single-layer DVD+/-R.

Use ntfsresize on the /dev/sda2.  You will need to mount it (ro) first
to see how much space it's actually *using* first.  You could also
optionally get rid of the Rescue partition since you have a copy that
can be restored if need be.

# ntfsresize -s 20G /dev/sda2

After this you'll need to fdisk the drive.  Basically remove sda2 and
add it again with a smaller size *or* use gparted (included with
RIPLinux) and have it do all that for you much easier.  I also replaced
sda1 with an ext2 filesystem and use it for /boot. Use the remaining
space from sda2 and sda3 to to create a Gentoo partition.  So in the end
you'll have something like this:

+------+
| MBR  |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda1 | /boot                   |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda2 | Windows XP (smaller)    |
+------+-------------------------+
| sda3 | Gentoo / (larger)       |
+------+------------------------ +

Or you could create an sda4 for swap (I actually use a swap file on /).
Might wanna reboot after the changes to make sure Windows still comes
up.  Then back into RIPLinux to install Gentoo.  Final step is to
install grub on the MBR and add a root=/dev/sda3 entry for Gentoo and
chainload /dev/sda2 for Windows to boot.

Then if I ever want to restore to factory, (hopefully) all I need to to
is boot with RIPLinux, restore the partition table, restore the MBR,
restore the Utility and Rescue partitions, and then reboot the machine
into Dell's Utility partition and use it to restore the Windows
partition back to factory.  In reality I haven't actually tried that
LOL.  But I do have a working system that dual boots Gentoo and XP.

HTH
--
Albert W. Hopkins

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Florian Philipp]

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Am Donnerstag 19 Juli 2007 21:01 schrieb Albert Hopkins:
> On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 17:58 +0000, James wrote:
> > Albert Hopkins <marduk <at> gentoo.org> writes:
>
> [...]
>
> > I'm not sure if Vista versus XP make any difference. In a recent post
> > on this list about grub  one reader  posted about the fact that with
> > Vista the boot.ini file is gone. I'm not sure that this effects your
> > proposed method?
>
> I've no experience with Vista, so I can't say for sure.  But it
> shouldn't make any difference since boot.ini is used by the Windows
> bootloader and we aren't using that (we're replacing it with GRUB).
>

Well, actually we are using both (chainloading ntldr by grub) and if you are 
changing the partition scheme, you might need to work with it.

Wikipedia about the Vista bootloader: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_Startup_Process

> > >      2. Back up MBR, parition table, and partitions to DVD, network or
> > >         external drive.
> > >      3. Use ntfsresize to shrink the XP partition, make sure it still
> > >         boots.
> >
> > Hmmm, I must have missed something. In step one you said to boot via
> > a liveCD or RIP linux. Now in step 3 you say to use ntfsresize. Is it
> > available on the liveCD (I never used it during an install)?
> > A few more details on this step would be useful.
>
> Sorry when I said boot via liveCD I wasn't specifically referring to the
> Gentoo LiveCD, but "a"/"any" liveCD.  The one I always use is RIPLinux.
> It's great for this kind of stuff.. but I actually use it on a USB stick
> as opposed to a physical CD.  RIPLinux comes with all kinds of stuff:
> ntfs/lvm/raid tools, partimage, [g]parted, qemu, mt, mtools, network
> clients, cd/dvd recording software, ndiswrapper, alsa, boot-from-grub,
> X11, etc. etc).  Fit's on a 128MB USB stick and loads right into RAM.
> It's awesome.  You'll never look at another live cd for
> recovery/administration again.  Don't tell anyone I said this, but it's
> also great for installing Gentoo ;-)

Is it stable? I've tried the newest Knoppix which can copy itself into RAM, 
too (although WAY slower because of its size the disk speed) and it always 
crashed after some time although there was enough space left and the RAM is 
known good.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 21:29 +0200, Florian Philipp wrote:

> Well, actually we are using both (chainloading ntldr by grub) and if you are 
> changing the partition scheme, you might need to work with it.
> 

Sorry I was confused.

[...]

> > Sorry when I said boot via liveCD I wasn't specifically referring to the
> > Gentoo LiveCD, but "a"/"any" liveCD.  The one I always use is RIPLinux.
> > It's great for this kind of stuff.. but I actually use it on a USB stick
> > as opposed to a physical CD.  RIPLinux comes with all kinds of stuff:
> > ntfs/lvm/raid tools, partimage, [g]parted, qemu, mt, mtools, network
> > clients, cd/dvd recording software, ndiswrapper, alsa, boot-from-grub,
> > X11, etc. etc).  Fit's on a 128MB USB stick and loads right into RAM.
> > It's awesome.  You'll never look at another live cd for
> > recovery/administration again.  Don't tell anyone I said this, but it's
> > also great for installing Gentoo ;-)
> 
> Is it stable? I've tried the newest Knoppix which can copy itself into RAM, 
> too (although WAY slower because of its size the disk speed) and it always 
> crashed after some time although there was enough space left and the RAM is 
> known good.

I've been using RIPLinux for 3 years and haven't had any issues with it.
I would not compare it to Knoppix though as they have different goals.
Knoppix is more "pack as much Linux on a cd as possible" whereas
RIPLinux is made specifically for recovery and administration.   The
software list is kept down to the essentials.  The non-X version is only
about 32MB, but it contains a host of stuff that administrators need...
probably stuff that you won't find on Knoppix.  For example the last
time I used Knoppix, and it has been a while, it didn't recognize LVM
volumes.  But RIPLinux is not the type of live cd you'd want to boot and
use as a "daily" linux.  It's a tractor not sedan lol.  Because of it's
size it loads pretty quickly.  The documentation states "You'll need at
least 128MB of RAM and a 486DX CPU".  Though it will run on old hardware
it comes with the latest software... even will mount my ext4dev drive.
The X11 version will on-the-fly download the latest Firefox snapshot
from mozilla.org and load/run it from RAM if u tell it to.  It comes
with Qemu for testing images.  It can even boot itself into qemu.

Great utility.  I can't stop talking about it LOL.  The only thing I
wish it had that's missing are Amanda client and OpenVPN, but those are
not major items.

--
Albert W. Hopkins

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

[gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[James]

Albert Hopkins <marduk <at> gentoo.org> writes:


> I've been using RIPLinux for 3 years and haven't had any issues with it.

Ok Albert,

I'm convinced. I'm going to give your suggestions a whirl.
One cautious step I'm adding as suggested, is to back up the
virgin drive with DD.

I'm looking for a cable so that I can copy the sony drive
onto a gentoo partition of another system via a usb 2.0 to
ata/eide cable.

It was suggested this cable:
ttp://tinyurl.com/ynhszy

But being in Florida and only being able to use the company
credit card over the phone, does anyone know of another cable
I can purchase to back up the laptop's drive? HOwfully a vendor
that takes visa over the phone....
<brain dead company policy....>


James


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Albert Hopkins]

On Thu, 2007-07-19 at 21:45 +0000, James wrote:
> Ok Albert,
> 
> I'm convinced. I'm going to give your suggestions a whirl.
> One cautious step I'm adding as suggested, is to back up the
> virgin drive with DD.
> 
> I'm looking for a cable so that I can copy the sony drive
> onto a gentoo partition of another system via a usb 2.0 to
> ata/eide cable.
> 
> It was suggested this cable:
> ttp://tinyurl.com/ynhszy [sic]
> 
> But being in Florida and only being able to use the company
> credit card over the phone, does anyone know of another cable
> I can purchase to back up the laptop's drive? HOwfully a vendor
> that takes visa over the phone....
> <brain dead company policy....>

I would actually opt for an enclosure.  Qalculate is telling me that
£24.95 is ~$51 USD.  You can get an enclosure at Best Buy , Frys (if
they have that there) or CompUSA at around the same price (e.g.
http://tinyurl.com/2tfyml).  Does your company allow you to go to
purchase at a store?

Also, you may want to consider ntfsclone instead of dd for backing up
ntfs partitions.  ntfsclone is sparse-file and free-space aware so may
be more efficient WRT disk space and time.  I haven't tried it yet
myself, but it's on my list.
--
Albert W. Hopkins

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Stroller]

On 19 Jul 2007, at 23:22, Albert Hopkins wrote:
>> ...
>> I'm looking for a cable so that I can copy the sony drive
>> onto a gentoo partition of another system via a usb 2.0 to
>> ata/eide cable.
>>
>> It was suggested this cable:
>> ttp://tinyurl.com/ynhszy [sic]
>>
>> But being in Florida...

These are really easy to find and are currently very common from many  
online vendors.

I wasn't recommending that supplier as I paid less for mine - you can  
find lots of places that sell these simply by Googling "USB EIDE SATA  
adaptor". Since I'm in the UK that was the first (sponsored) link I  
found - I only meant it to illustrate my suggestion of "get one of  
these, so you can back up".

When I search again I find the second result is a US vendor - they  
should save themselves money and use Google Ad's regional settings to  
exclude the likes of me: http://tekgems.com/Products/kl-usb-sata- 
ide-25-35.htm

> I would actually opt for an enclosure.  Qalculate is telling me that
> £24.95 is ~$51 USD.  You can get an enclosure at Best Buy , Frys (if
> they have that there) or CompUSA at around the same price ...

Enclosures are great when you want to keep a drive in there. But in  
the case that you want to - say - pull the hard-drive out of your  
laptop and plug it into a desktop PC for just a few minutes these  
"adaptor cables" are very useful indeed. The link above prices them  
at $17 - a price at which, IMO, you can't go wrong.

Stroller. --
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 00:34:23 +0100, Stroller wrote:

> Enclosures are great when you want to keep a drive in there. But in  
> the case that you want to - say - pull the hard-drive out of your  
> laptop and plug it into a desktop PC for just a few minutes these  
> "adaptor cables" are very useful indeed. The link above prices them  
> at $17 - a price at which, IMO, you can't go wrong.

Except when they corrupt your data, which I've had two different adaptors
do when copying large amounts of data. If the hard drive is already in
another computer, why not connect them with ethernet or firewire cables
instead of removing drives?


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Exercise daily. Eat wisely. Die anyway.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Albert Hopkins]

> Enclosures are great when you want to keep a drive in there. But in  
> the case that you want to - say - pull the hard-drive out of your  
> laptop and plug it into a desktop PC for just a few minutes these  
> "adaptor cables" are very useful indeed. The link above prices them  
> at $17 - a price at which, IMO, you can't go wrong.

Sorry I was under the impression he was using a dedicated drive for the
purpose.  I have a drive/enclosure that I lug around from machine to
machine.  Though, if it were me, I'd still get an enclosure if just to
have that future capability.

FWIW, James, as an experiment I did restore the factory partition table,
MBR, and Utility and Restore partitions and from there was able to
restore my Inspiron to factory defaults.  Then I was able to restore it
back to the Gentoo/XP dual boot configuration (whew!).  The only thing I
would change based on the experience is that partimage appears to be a
smarter/faster/slightly-easier alternative to ntfsclone and/or dd.  And
gparted is of course easier to work with than working w/
fdisk/ntfsresize directly.

HTH
--
Albert W. Hopkins

-- 
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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sony Viao Vista and Gentoo

[Stroller]

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On 20 Jul 2007, at 13:04, Albert Hopkins wrote:
>> ...
>> Enclosures are great when you want to keep a drive in there. But in
>> the case that you want to - say - pull the hard-drive out of your
>> laptop and plug it into a desktop PC for just a few minutes these
>> "adaptor cables" are very useful indeed. The link above prices them
>> at $17 - a price at which, IMO, you can't go wrong.
>
> Sorry I was under the impression he was using a dedicated drive for  
> the
> purpose.  I have a drive/enclosure that I lug around from machine to
> machine.  Though, if it were me, I'd still get an enclosure if just to
> have that future capability.

I don't know about this particular case.

I originally replied off-list because there was some Windows stuff I  
mentioned in my message that I felt to be off-topic & inappropriate  
for the list. The link that I gave was simply to say "get one of  
these, and backup, whatever you do".

I personally find this kind of dongly external adaptor to be more  
useful for temporary & ad-hoc use. In my house an external case will  
very quickly find a spare drive shoved in it and I'll fill it with  
"archive and backup" material. When I'm working on installation of a  
new machine & dd'ing partitions around I'd rather leave no room for  
error and not have a drive with that kind of stuff on it connected to  
the machine.

Additionally, in my experience, external drive enclosures are  
designed to take either an 2.5" or 3.5", EIDE or SATA drive, but not  
all kinds. The product I linked to is very versatile and will  
accommodate any of these drive types that I happen to have lying  
around, happen to be able to pull from my playstation or happen to  
need to work on. I fix PCs for a living and this is in my bag always  
- I'm sure it's used on average as often as once per week or ten  
days. I haven't experienced the problems Neil Bothwick describes -  
maybe mine is from a different batch or factory - although I have  
(not recently) had it decline to work with some (older?) 3.5" EIDE  
drives.

YMMV, horses for courses & it may depend how often you need to use it.

Stroller.

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