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

[Florian Philipp]

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.