Before I Buy Questions--partitioning

[spartan]

I am about to buy a C3000, and after rereading the forums on its usability, I've noticed something... unfriendly about the partitioning of the hard disk.

From what I understood, there are two Linux-dedicated partitions and an FAT32 partition. If this is true, could anyone give me some advice as to how to create one primary partition dedicated entirely to Linux? I wasn't sure if this is as important as it is in Windows, where having multiple partitions is a pain. In addition, what would I need to still allow easy access to the hard disk from Windows?

I've been curious of what kind of limitations prevent me from installing, say, something like Debian 3 for ARM.

Another thing I'm highly unprepared to try is recompiling, something that sold me on Linux as opposed to a Windows CE device. What should I have recompiling something like MoMo--the open-source .Net runtime--to the Zaurus? I would greatly appreciate some recommendations.

[spartan]

And also, what kind of drivers are needed for the RH2, the remote control for the headphones? I'm worried that if I were to do any operating-system changing, this wonderful accessory won't work.

[Newbix]

Yes, you can reformat the big FAT partition to something more usefull. But you must edit the startup script /root/etc/rc.d/init.d/rc.rofilesys zhich tries to mount /dev/hdc3 as FAT (you'll need to "mount /dev/root / -o remount,rw" first)

About running a debian on the SL-C3000, there is no problem, this is exactly what I'm doing :-)
I mustly followed instructions from this page, and will post more details soon...

[spartan]

Thanks. Is there any way to safely make one partition for all the space?

[bmsleight]

Newbix,

Any details would be really good. If you give me some details I will write a how to

I am developer on another project ( morphix.org/howtos/ ),which is based on debian, Once I get a network card to transfer the files I will be attempting debian myself.

Regards,
Brendan

[Newbix]

I'll write a quick howto today or tomorrow.

By the way, you don't need any network card, the usb cable is good enough if you have a linux box nearby :-)

[spartan]

Thanks for the insight Newbix. The HowTo is very helpful, but I'm still waiting on my C3000 to actually ship!

[Newbix]

Thanks. Is there any way to safely make one partition for all the space?

Actually the microdrive has 3 partitions:
- /hdd1 : 97Mo
- /hdd2 : 389Mo
- /hdd3 : 3.3Go

The fisrt two contains some system files, and the third ariginally contains the english/japanese dictionary.

If you want to have only one partition, you'll have to modifiy more heavily /root/etc/rc.d/rc.rofylesys.d and to change all the symlinks sharp as put everywhere. Indeed, you'll need to have a useable system while you move files around, you could use a CF card for that, but it makes things more complicated.

In fact, I think it's a bit risky (if you miss something, I don't know if you'll be able boot) and not worth 500 Mo (and you can use those 500Mo anyway)