Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> > > BL2 does vfat.
> >
> > I just look up the .config and yes it does,
> > but BL3 does not.  (Why?)
>
> The usual reason:  to make a smaller kernel.

So what is expected to happen if I try with Bl3 to mount a fat32 
partition?  Might this have messed up my fat32 partition?

> > Does it detect ext2 automatically?
>
> Usually.
>
> > If I have fat and vfat in the kernel will it do DOS
> > drives automatically?
>
> The auto-detect does not differentiate between fat,
> vfat and umsdos.  The only way to be sure of getting
> the right one is to specify it with the -t parameter.

If vfat=y or n it seems to mount the DOS partitions (fat16) without -t 
msdos but I configured it as a module and even with plain msdos I have to 
specify or I am told the kernel does not support vfat .  I had better 
change this to y and recompile.

> > So VFAT is not FAT32?
>
> Isn't it?

People keep telling me different things.  FAT32 is for 2G or larger drives 
and FAT16, they say, can handle long file names (with freedos or msdos 7). 
Is this wrong?  In any event, I think I should keep fat32 and long file 
names off my DOS/linux computers to avoid problems.  I can copy truncated 
linux files to DOS once in a while instead of ~1 names.  Easier to type.

> > Can the Bl2 kernel mount a FAT32 partition?
>
> I assumed vfat would handle it, but I have little
> experience with Windows partitions.

I may have tried to mount the FAT32 partition with BL3 - would this have 
messed up anything if it used plain msdos to mount it?

Would someone else with BL3 on a computer with a FAT32 partition like to 
experiment with this?  I no longer have a usable FAT32 partition - I tried 
to resize with PQMagic and it is now garbage.  (PQMagic said I had a 3GB 
drive with the first partition 1.5GB and others about 500MB.  The drive is 
1.2GB.  It also claimed I had over 1.2GB of files on there.  I figured I 
had nothing left to lose so I tried to resize).  If this in fact caused 
problems perhaps BL3 should be able to handle vfat.  Can you load loop BL3 
from a FAT32 partition?  The next message in this list said it could be 
done with fs.img on the FAT32 partition.  I notice that BL3 mounts 
/initrd/DOS but is it mounting the partition with loadlin or the partition 
with fs.img?

Perhaps I should use my new BL2-type kernel with BL3 if I am likely to 
mess up FAT32 partitions with the regular kernel.  I still have one on 
another computer. I also compiled a smaller (404K) BL3-type kernel for old 
laptops (without CD-ROM or ethernet or math emu or NLS, but with 386 
support - should I post that for other people with non-CDROM 387 and 486DX 
laptops?)

I was not asked any kernel config questions about PCMCIA - why?

Maybe my messed-up partition table had nothing to do with linux and vfat.
Could be that part of the drive is just going bad.  (I hope not, it is a 
large - 1.2G - drive, but I guess 540 should be enough for DOS without 
Win98).  If the boot sector area is bad, is there some workaround?


I eventually started to get 'interrupt' type error messages in linux even 
when booted from floppy drive - it apparently does some maintenance on 
hda (DOS).  Is there some way to boot linux and tell it to ignore hda?  (I 
could disable it in CMOS in order to use linux to compile with).

> > Why did I get a message saying the kernel does not
> > support vfat
>
> Probably because you had no vfat in your kernel.
But why did it need to have vfat in the kernel in order to mount it as 
msdos?  If I do have vfat, it mounts as msdos, if I don't, I have to 
specify msdos.  Does having vfat check that it is not vfat?
 >
> > and then I was able to mount it as msdos?
>
> Because you had msdos in your kernel.
>
> > I am obviously confused.
>
> AFAIK Linux has three DOS-type filesystems:  msdos,
> vfat and umsdos.  msdos is the standard 8.3 DOS.
> vfat has long filenames.  umsdos is for running
> Linux on a DOS filesystem.


Yes, but why do I need vfat in teh kernel in order to mount (without 
specifying) something that is not msdos but vfat.


I will recompile with vfat=y and figure out how to use FreeDOS with emm386 
and loadlin before deciding what to do with the DOS drive.

> Cheers,
> Steven
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org