introduction

SuSE 10.1 and shrinking the NTFS partition

First a word of warning. Part of the SuSE 10.1 installation offers to shrink your NTFS partition to allow space to install Linux. I took this option and it hosed the NTFS partition and windows was no longer able to boot. Luckily I hadn't done anything in windows (except for defragging the c: drive) so nothing was lost.

Averatec AV4155-GH1

The laptop is a small, lightweight, AMD Turion 64bit machine. 80GB harddrive and 512MB memory.

installation

Initial set-up

I bought this laptop as an ex-display model, so the first thing I did was to test the rescue cds restore of the system. This worked without problem, the documentation said 4 cds, but only 3 were in the package - it only needed 3. The only shame is that it does not allow you to restore the windows OS to a smaller partition size.

Next I tried to use qtparted version 0.43? from a 64bit AMD Knoppix 4.3 cd. Using the suggested resize c: to 14639 MB this failed with the message that NTFS wasn't supported.

The same Knoppix cd included the program ntfsresize.

# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1866    14988613+   7  HPFS/NTFS
    

Erm, ... this disk looks to have been resized by qtparted, even though it gave an error message.

# ntfsresize
ntfsresize v200309071734captive1

Usage: ntfsresize [options] device
    Resize an NTFS volume non-destructively.

    -i      --info       Calculate the smallest shrunken size supported
    -s num  --size num   Resize volume to num[k|M|G] bytes

    -n      --no-action  Do not write to disk
    -f      --force      Force to progress (DANGEROUS)
    -V      --version    Display version information
    -h      --help       Display this help

    The options -i and -s are mutually exclusive. If both options are
    omitted then the NTFS volume will be enlarged to the device size.

Please report bugs to linux-ntfs-dev@lists.sourceforge.net
Linux NTFS homepage: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net

# ntfsresize -if

ntfsresize v200309071734captive1
NTFS volume version: 3.1
Cluster size       : 4096 bytes
Current volume size: 15345901568 bytes (15346 MB)
Current device size: 15348340224 bytes (15349 MB)
Checking filesystem consistency ...
Accounting clusters ...
Space in use       : 3668 MB (23.9%)   
Calculating smallest shrunken size supported ...
You could resize at 14638854144 bytes or 14639 MB (freeing 707 MB).
    

OK, so even though qtparted gave an error message saying that it didn't work, it did actually work!

chkdsk ran upon windows reboot - then rebooted windows - which then came up ok. and my /dev/hda1 is really 14.2 GB in size.

Because of the shitty way that the system rescue works it is important now to make a backup on the windows partition. I updated windows - 54 update packages as of 2006/08/30. Then I rebooted from the Knoppix cd with a USB disk drive plugged in.

# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/dd_hda1_20060830 bs=40960
    

I then put in the SuSE 10.1 DVD and rebooted, selected installation. I accepted the default suggestion for disk partitioning. I changed some things in the suggested installation options - I have a german keyboard and wanted german as a secondary language. I also installed extra software packages - kernel development and c, c++ development. The install ran for about 2 hours, detected and set-up the ethernet adapter. After install I changed the display size to 1440x900 (WXGA). I now have a working laptop with SuSE 10.1 Linux.

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 760/M760 Host (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SG86C202
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS964 [MuTIOL Media IO] (rev 36)
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev 01)
00:02.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Sound Controller (rev a0)
00:03.0 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.1 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 0f)
00:03.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 2.0 Controller
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 91)
00:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)
00:09.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ601/6912/711E0 CardBus/SmartCardBus Controller
00:0b.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 661/741/760/761 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter
    

lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
xt_pkttype              2304  3 
ipt_LOG                 6656  8 
xt_limit                2944  8 
af_packet              22028  2 
cpufreq_ondemand        6956  1 
cpufreq_userspace       4500  0 
cpufreq_powersave       2176  0 
powernow_k8            10512  0 
freq_table              5128  1 powernow_k8
snd_pcm_oss            49024  0 
snd_mixer_oss          18304  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq                55712  0 
snd_seq_device          9360  1 snd_seq
edd                    10504  0 
button                  7968  0 
battery                11016  0 
ac                      5896  0 
ip6t_REJECT             6016  3 
xt_tcpudp               3712  3 
ipt_REJECT              6016  3 
xt_state                2560  12 
iptable_mangle          3328  0 
iptable_nat             8964  0 
ip_nat                 18860  1 iptable_nat
iptable_filter          3456  1 
ip6table_mangle         2816  0 
ip_conntrack           57228  3 xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_nat
nfnetlink               7240  2 ip_nat,ip_conntrack
ip_tables              12368  3 iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_filter
ip6table_filter         3328  1 
ip6_tables             13904  2 ip6table_mangle,ip6table_filter
x_tables               14216  10 xt_pkttype,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,ip6t_REJECT,xt_tcpudp,ipt_REJECT,xt_state,iptable_nat,ip_tables,ip6_tables
ipv6                  252000  13 ip6t_REJECT
apparmor               53540  0 
aamatch_pcre           14464  1 apparmor
nls_utf8                2432  1 
ntfs                  185320  1 
loop                   16016  0 
dm_mod                 59976  0 
pcmcia                 39704  0 
firmware_class         11648  1 pcmcia
shpchp                 45440  0 
pci_hotplug            28136  1 shpchp
ohci1394               32584  0 
ieee1394              101624  1 ohci1394
sis900                 24192  0 
mii                     6144  1 sis900
ohci_hcd               19460  0 
ide_cd                 40480  0 
cdrom                  36008  1 ide_cd
ehci_hcd               30216  0 
usbcore               130600  3 ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd
yenta_socket           26892  1 
rsrc_nonstatic         12928  1 yenta_socket
pcmcia_core            42652  3 pcmcia,yenta_socket,rsrc_nonstatic
snd_intel8x0           35624  1 
snd_ac97_codec        102232  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus            2816  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                97292  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              24968  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                    65192  10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              10656  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         10640  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
reiserfs              222464  2 
fan                     5640  0 
thermal                15888  0 
processor              26068  2 powernow_k8,thermal
sis5513                13968  0 [permanent]
ide_disk               16512  5 
ide_core              145380  3 ide_cd,sis5513,ide_disk
    

cpu frequency - power save

# cpufreq-info
cpufrequtils 0.4: cpufreq-info (C) Dominik Brodowski 2004
Report errors and bugs to linux@brodo.de, please.
analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: powernow-k8
  CPUs which need to switch frequency at the same time: 0
  hardware limits: 800 MHz - 1.60 GHz
  available frequency steps: 1.60 GHz, 800 MHz
  available cpufreq governors: ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
  current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 1.60 GHz.
                  The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  current CPU frequency is 800 MHz (asserted by call to hardware).
    

I followed the advice on Ian Martin's page for the power save button configuration, this doesn't work yet....