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Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:40 am
by Peter
duncan wrote:Had a look at the other thread "Q40 & Q60 Roms" it looks like hard work and I think I will leave EPROM programming for the experts.
If you are okay with creating the images yourself (as that involves your taste in configuration) I'm pretty sure someone will program them for you. Easier in the UK for shipment, but if you can find nobody over there, I offer to do it. QLWA images on a large FAT32 formatted partition are much more convenient if you only want to use SMSQ/E.

Important note: Although Q60 Linux supports PC partition tables instead of Atari in principle (swapdata kernel option needed for Intel endianess) I did not yet succeed getting a whole system set up this way! So if you are intrested in Linux, you should have at least one harddisk still in Atari scheme.

If I remember correctly, it is also possible to run atari-fdisk without a Linux install, just from ramdisk.

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:18 pm
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

The latest Q60/40 Linux implementation was called Shoestring Linux, which is supplied on a CD-ROM disc snd floppy disc with a SMSQ/E application called Linux Loader.

The Q60 can load the Shoestring Linux system from on CD-ROM, by executing the Linux Loader on floppy disk or SMSQ/E partition. To load a RAM based Linux system.

Once the RAM baded Linux system is running, the IDE device can be mounted and "atari-fdisk" can be run to confugure IDE device with what ever partitions required.

The Q60 only supports 4 Primary paritions, do I used configure new Q60 systems with 3 x QWA partitions, Linux partiton and an extended Linux Partition.

The 5th partition is where yhe Linux system is held, which can be seen from SMSQ/E.

I suppose that instead having 3 x QWA , 1 Linux partitions, 4 QWA partitions could used and a cutdown version on Shoestring Linux be used to configure the IDE device.

I wanted configure all this from SMSQ/E, but the MKPART programme was was inflexible. There seemed to be no support from anyone on this matter.

The other solution I thought about was to get the source code to Shoestring Linux atari-fdisk and port it to SMSQ/E, but alas the source code was unavailable.

So I am sorry to say I gave up that avenue to thought.

As I mention earlier, I have disassembled MKPART and trying work out what all means.

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:54 pm
by XorA
Derek, the parted tool in modern linux seems to support atari partition tables. So it should be possible to knock something together.

I don't have a Q60 for testing though!

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:48 am
by Peter
XorA wrote:Derek, the parted tool in modern linux seems to support atari partition tables. So it should be possible to knock something together.
Where would parted run?
I could imagine you mean attaching an IDE devide to an Intel PC and do the partitioning there. In that case, endianess could become a problem, as IDE hardware is 16 bit wide on the low level.
Or does parted include a byteswap option?

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:54 am
by XorA
Peter wrote:
XorA wrote:Derek, the parted tool in modern linux seems to support atari partition tables. So it should be possible to knock something together.
Where would parted run?
I could imagine you mean attaching an IDE devide to an Intel PC and do the partitioning there. In that case, endianess could become a problem, as IDE hardware is 16 bit wide on the low level.
Or does parted include a byteswap option?
parted doesnt, but dd does have a swab option so if you work on an image as an intermediate it should be workable although not streamlined!

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:50 pm
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

It is all very well to use a PC, or boot into Shoestring Linux to configure QWA partitions, but I really wanted to do this on from SBASIC on the Q60.

But there seemed to be all dorts of issues of obtaoning the String Linux atari-fdisk compiled for the Q40/60.

Maybe easier to start agsin and write new Q60 partition application correctly.

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:00 pm
by Peter
Did anyone have a look at Jerome Grimbert's FDISK software? There is no documentation, so I never tried...
http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/qx0/fdisk.zip

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:07 pm
by duncan
Hi
Did anyone have a look at Jerome Grimbert's FDISK software? There is no documentation,
I did. But without documentation the GUI was too difficult for me to immediately grasp and as I had fixed my 4th partition to the correct size by editing the partition table with WinEd I had no desire to experiment.

Its a pity there is no documentation.

By the way thanks for offering to create the ROMs but I remain happy to boot from hard disk. Thanks anyway.

Cheers

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2021 2:14 pm
by Peter
It should also be possible to create a pair of floppy disks with Linux kernel and a minimal ramdisk for the sole purpose of using atari-fdisk. Would that still be of importance?

Re: MKpart_exe for Q40 & Q60

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:20 am
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

Shoestring Linux is loaded to ram from the installation CDROM disc, by executing the Linux Loader in SMSQ/E. Once the ram based Linux is running the hard disks can be setup with 'atari-fdisk'.

As I mentioned earlier, I used to boot the Q60 from ROM, and insert the ShoeString Linux Distribution CDROM disc into the CD Drive. Use a Floppy disk to run the Linux Loader, which is a QDOS application and load the Linux operating system to ram so that the IDE hard drive /dev/hdc can be configured with the correct partitions or restore from a network backup image.

I was asking the Shoestring Linux author for the source code to the Shoestring Linux Distribution, so that I learn more about Linux programming and maybe port 'atari-fdisk' to the Q60, so the partitioning could be setup from SMSQ/E not Linux. BUt there was always a problem of loading the Shoestring Linux source to a Internet server, or so I was told. I could not even be supplied with the Shoestring Linux atari-fdisk soruce code. So I moved on to find other solutions.

But I had a network server running with the Q60 hard drive image file, which included WIN1, WIN2, WIN3 : 512Mb, Linux Boot as partition 4, with the Linux software in extended Linux partitions.

This saved a lot of time configuring the Q60 Computer system which D&D Systems were selling. As the ethernet port on the Q60 in Linux worked perfectly so the restoring of a hard drive image was best solution, everything being the same.

Advancing 18 years, I employ the same method on the Q68, except for the SD Card is imaged and restored to new distribution SD Card.

Not much changed...