Re: Hurd features (continued)

[olafBuddenhagen]

Hi,

On Fri, Feb 16, 2007 at 07:55:33PM +1300, Shams wrote:

> 1. With ext2 for Hurd what is the minimum and maximum partition size
> that Hurd can make use of or is restricted to?

If you use the Debian package, there is no special restriction. Note
however that the patch for supporting partitions > 2 GiB is still not in
upstream CVS, in case you want to compile Hurd yourself.

Also note that for partitions < 512 MiB, you'll have to explicitely
force the block size to be 4096 Bytes. (For larger partitions, it's the
default setting.)

> I mean for my Hurd installations is there a guide for
> hardware/software requirements guide somewhere?

Not that I know of.

There are some know pitfalls though: No SATA; no shared IRQs for devices
that gnumach has drivers for (for unknown devices, it doesn't matter);
no IRQs above 15; and most AMD 64 bit machines do not seem to work,
though the reasons are not known. (No idea about Intel's variant.)

In general, Pentium3-class machines tend to work best; with anything
newer, you can easily run into trouble... (gnumach mostly uses drivers
from Linux 2.0.)

> 2. In the MBR the partition type for ext2 is partition type 0x83, do
> you know what this is for the Guid Partition Table (GPT)?

No idea.

> Is the Hurd partitition types shared with the ones for Linux

Yes. Same filesystem, so same partition type. Note however that you need
to set the filesystem "owner" to "hurd".

> and is this I think going to happen for some time to come?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

No idea what you mean.

> 3. I assume that if I want to develop Mach/Hurd and related
> translators etc, I will have to do this on Linux first and then create
> an ISO image to install into the required partition?

Why would you do that? The Hurd has been self-hosting for more than a
decade.

Just try installing the Debian GNU/Hurd distribution, see

   http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

> 4. Are you actively involved in developing for Hurd at the moment?

Strage to ask such a question on a mailing list -- who are you referring
to? Everyone here? Some specific person?

If you mean me: Well, marginally.

-antrik-