Well, over the weekend I found some time to try out the new Linux CD -
yes, it did arrive, thanks Claus - so here are a few observations:
Getting it installed and running was very straightforward and the
following are not problems that required workarounds.
1. I copied the loader and kernel zip files onto MSDOS formatted
diskettes on a PC. When I unzipped them on SMSQ I got the following
messages:
Inflating: boot warning: skipping unknown (non-Qdos) extra field.
I got this message also for loader_txt, howto-install_txt, README,
ramimg_gz and vmlinux. Only lxx was unaffected.
2. I partitioned the disk using atari-fdisk as follows:
hda1 - QDOS 4Gb
hda2 - Linux 4Gb
hda3 - Linux swap 512Mb (yes, I discovered there is still a 128Mb
limit
afterwards, as /proc/meminfo clearly showed).
hda4 - Linux 31Gb
Even though two Linux partitions were available, the installation made
a filesystem only on hda2 and put /, /usr and /home on it, leaving
hda4 unused. Later it was easy enough to move /home onto hda4.
This will not be my final configuration, I'm just experimenting at this
stage.
I tried formatting the QDOS partition with qxltool, but it wanted me to
run fix_geometry. Of course the leaflet I got with the disk has long
since been filed away and I couldn't be bothered to pull the disk out
to read the label on it, so I've not bothered with that yet. However,
just to see what would happen, and in spite of warnings against, I
tried formatting the QDOS partition from SMSQ. It worked and didn't
seem to damage the Linux installation, but DIR will not report any size
information - you just get 0/0. Anyway it was good enough to allow me
to boot Linux from hard disk instead of floppy.
3. Booting Linux takes ages (from hard disk) - the part before the
screen clears and the Linux penguin appears. After that initialization
seems to be as quick as any x86 system of similar performance. The
default console font seems easy enough to read on a 14 inch monitor
(the final larger font - not the initial tiny one).
4. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't have to do any
configuration to get X working. I just typed startx and it worked!
5. Reading large files from diskettes is a lot quicker in Linux than in
SMSQ.
6. Normally, after installing a new version of Linux, I will build a
custom kernel - perhaps not really relevant on Q40 as there are no
extra bits of hardware to support. But anyway, I noticed the Linux
source is 2.2.6. I ran through the usual build procedure: mrproper,
menuconfig, dep, clean, zImage. Make modules stopped with an error,
which I wrote down - I'll post it if anyone's interested. Even though
I knew it wouldn't get very far without modules, I transferred the new
kernel via diskette onto the QDOS partition (it was about 900k). The
2.2.6 kernel booted a lot quicker than 2.2.17, taking only a few
seconds B.P. (Before Penguin). Initialization ended with a not
unexpected kernel panic.
So will I continue using Q40 Linux for projects? Too early to say yet,
I will certainly experiment with it a bit more and I'd like to get the
2.2.17 kernel source. There are some clear advantages over SMSQ -
better filesystem, faster file access without the slave blocks, mature
CDROM support; but some disadvantages - it isn't a QL :O) no SBASIC
(except with emulator), not as simple to use graphics, slower to boot.
The speed of disk access is a limitation on the ISA bus compared to my
800MHz Pentium with 100MHz IDE, which would be a more practical
proposition to base a 40Gb Linux system on.
By the way, I also tried out QDOS Classic. I liked it, you even get
the F1-Monitor, F2-TV option and the Ctrl-Alt-Shift-whatsit reboot
option works, but during initialization it said it couldn't find a
Qubide partition on the hard disk. Can someone tell me how I go about
creating one? (Perhaps there's some documentation on the CD I haven't
had time to read yet.)
Finally, sorry about the length of this post!
Ian.
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