@ Wolfman:
The 'Windows' entry is the only one which shouldn't be existing. I'm always using mouning tools like 'Storage Device Manager' or something, it may be possible that I mounted the devices with a name, like in OS X. The structure ist simliar, but not the same:
Linux: /media/sda1, sda2, sda3
OS X: /Volumes/Macintosh, Data, Video
So in OS X you normally never access a drive with its device number, only by the volume name. All drives and partitions are mounted at startup and you don't have a Swap partition. So maybe a kind of volume name remained in the Linux partition file, where was it? I remember something like /etc/fstab or so. I'm no Linux user
@ swarfendor437:
Hehe ubergeek, the first letter must be an
Ü. Well, I have more than 22 years computer experience, started like usual with the C64 and I'm still using them. With revisions I worked with about 20-30 operating systems, and there is no Linux in them. Well, if you think this partition system is crazy, then read my infos to AROS later.
Well, short to say: Everything is working with this setup, except that Android x86 isn't booting at all (it has a very reduced grub), Zorin brings during boot the message 'Press S to skip mounting', and I have to press S twice. That's all about in this thread. I can create a multiboot guide, but I'd like to get the Android x86 booting. OS X 10.6 is also planned on partition 3.
To the Windows swap partition: Normally the swapfile 'pagefile.sys' is located in C:/, it's an invisible file. In the extended settings for virtual memory you can also create more than one pagefile.sys or put it on another drive. I'm always doing this, like Linux has an own swap partition. The typical size of a Windows swapfile is about 1.5x the physical RAM, so about 4600 MB for Windows XP and 12100 MB for Windows 7 64bit with 8 GB RAM. If these big files aren't located on C:/, you gain a lot of space and you could better defragment the drive. The file hiberfil.sys is fixed, it cannot be defragmented. And also if you make a full backup (f.e. with TrueImage), you also save a lot of space. In earlier times, I switched this file off every time before a backup, but using this swap partition this works much better. To use it, create a partition with the size you need during a fresh installation. I think in drive management (don't know the english name) you could change the drive letter, best use S: (swap) or T: (temp) and format in NTFS. Open the virtual memory settings, and it will show the drives, including free drive space. Windows also shows a recommended size for the swap file. Create these manually, so set start size
and end size to 4600 (or what is recommended, if the space is big enough), that there is a complete undefragmented file over the complete drive. Accpet the changes, then select on drive C:/ 'no swap file' or whats it called in english. Accept again, then you have to reboot. If you open the virtual memory settings again, You should have no hiberfile.sys on drive C:/ and drive S:/ has the swap partition now. You'll also notice this in the drive overview, your drive C:/ must have more free space and S: is nearly full. Two usefulsteps: With TuneUp Utilities or another tweaking tool turn off the message that shows up when there's not much space left on the drive. It is also possible to disable partitions that they don't show up. So if S: is disabled, you can't see it anymore, but it still works.
This swap partition is only for Windows, it has no function in Linux. There is only one thing: If you have a big partition table like on my system, it must be the last partition. Zorin can only mount the partitions /dev/sda1 to /dev/sda9, partition /dev/sda10 cannot be mounted. If you have less then 10 partitions, then the position doesn't matter.
So, now to the AROS thing.
AROS is a free reprogrammed API of AmigaOS 3.1/3.9. It is designed to be source-compatible to the 68000-AmigaOS, but not binary compatible. Here's something in the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AROSThe most used distribution is Icaros Desktop. With version 1.4.5 and the Update 2 it already can read and write FAT drives and read NTFS drives. WLAN and everything is also supported, also experiemental Samba support. OWB is a very fast Acid3-compatible web browser, but it has no HTML5 and of course no Flash. You could try it, the DVD is free. It's a Live DVD with installer. It is also localized. But watch out: The 900 MB 7z-archive expands to a 2.5 GB ISO image! You can install it to to USB stick without problems. But is very hardware dependent, there are not much developers, so there are not too many drivers. May Thinkpad x61t is running fine, but there is no sound, although a driver for Intel HDA audio is loaded.
http://www.icarosdesktop.org/Now to the bootloader. It is GRUB, not more and not less. The advantage is, AmigaOS/AROS has no user permissions, so you could modify grub.cfg without any problems. AROS also boots very fast, so it's ideal for experimenting. My AROS GRUB has now working entries for Icaros Desktop, Windows 8, ZorinOS and some other things. Colour scheme and background picture are customized too. Editing was much easier than the Zorin GRUB configuration. AROS GRUB is very easy to reinstall, boot the Live DVD, start install, deactivate all packages except GRUB, set to graphics mode, finished. Of course, you have to backup your settings.
Well, if swarfendor437 thought my partition system with ten paritions is weird... Actually it has 13 partitions
The second partition was a 80 GB primary before, created from the Windows 8 installation. After the most things were finished, I deleted this one, and started the Icaros Desktop installer. It created me an own AROS partition with is own bootblock RDB (Rigid Disk Block). So I have actually two primary MBR partitions, one extended MBR partition with five logical MBR partitions, and one partition with RDB bootblock, containing 4 partitions using SFS (Smart File System). Everything understood?
To RDB: It is probably the best hard disk boot block ever. It allows so many partitions as you like, any could be different size, block size, different transfer rates, different file systems. You also could upload various file systems directly to the hard drive, so it's very easy to boot from FFS, PFS, SFS or Unix-like file systems, even on an 1986 Amiga 500. Every partition can also be bootable, with a user-defineable boot priority (floppy is 5). The device names are not fixed to C:, D:, /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 or something, it could be any word up to 30 characters long. So you could use for expample 'BOOTDRIVE:' as device name, and 'Workbench:' as volume name. AmigaOS/AROS recognoizes both names, and also watches for the names. So if a floppy/CD 'Install:' is neccessary, it must be named 'Install:'. The Amigas' hard drive system regonizes also multiple device names, so if you have a drive 'DH0:' installed, other drives will be renamed 'DH0.1:, DH0.2:', depending how they're connected (f.e. SCSI ID). It also detects devices with the same names, so the Amiga 4000T has an IDE and an SCSI controller on the board, both using the scsi.device. But they will be renamed in scsi.device, 2nd.scsi.device. If you add another controller using scsi.device it will be 3rd.scsi.device and so on. I think, RDB is the most flexible partition table ever, and it was already invented in 1986. That was also the problem that it accepted for a long time no hard drives larger than 4 GB, but this is solved, too.
The Amiga was far ahead of it's time, in 1985 a multimedia computer which allowed preemtative multitasking in less then 256 KBytes RAM, 1991 full localization was introduced. With the CDTV it had the first HTPC with remote control and CD drive, but the perople didin't know what a computer should do in the living room. The CD32 the first 32bit game console, the AAA-chipset which never came out was designed to be 64bit. But a main problem was Commodore's marketing, and the chipset structure was outdated at this time. An Amiga 1200 would be called today as '2MB shared memory'. But Amiga lives on, as official PowerPC-based AmigaOS 4, AROS for x86-PCs and for PowerPC-Macs there's MorphOS, which is awesome fast.
I checked my /etc/fstab and found some old entries, which I removed. But there was still 'pressing S to continue' neccsessary.
