Posted by
CmdrTaco
on from the divide-for-conquer dept.
dayeight wrote in
to tell us about Linux Mandrake's new
DiskDrake GUI Disk Partitioner
and resizer
GTK Based replacement for FIPS or Partition Magic- it looks like
a promising for the free world.
I hope the authors remember that Linux supports a bunch of different disk partitioning schemes (DOS and MacOS to name two), and provide a consistent interface regardless of what partitioning scheme is used. If this same tool can be used to manage partitions on my Linux/x86, Linux/Alpha and Linux/mac68k boxes, it becomes much more useful.
Would you trust a Beta disk partitioner
by
hedgehog_uk
·
· Score: 2
Quoteth the press release:
The first released version of DiskDrake is beta software, but it should improve rapidly with the contribution of the free-software community.
Just make sure you've got at least 2 backups of your drive first. I wouldn't let partitioning software that's in need of rapid improvement anywhere near my hard drive.
-- Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes. She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
Good work, but not quite a replacement.
by
David+Ziegler
·
· Score: 3
At first glance, DiskDrake appears to be a very great step for Linux - no more reliance on Disk Druid or fips or Partition Magic, or whatever. However, it's missing one feature Partition Magic has which really sets Partition Magic apart - it can't resize ext2 drives. According to the website,
resize partitions (when not caring loosing its data)
That sounds to me like no ext2 resize-on-the-fly support. It's not needed often, but when it is, it's a really nice feature to have. I've had to install Linux multiple times after adding/removing DOS partitions for whatever reason, and it's no fun. DiskDrake looks like a great program, definitely a step up, but until it gets ext2 resize support, Partition Magic's the way to go for ext2 resize, DiskDrake/fips/whatever for your Linux partition manager of choice.
Re:Good work, but not quite a replacement.
by
mangino
·
· Score: 3
The code to do that which is part of Partition Magic will be released as open source shortly. Part of the deal the author made when he wrote that code is that it would later be opensourced.
--
Mike Mangino
mmangino@acm.org
Where's the (PowerQuest) Code?
by
loren
·
· Score: 2
If memory serves, when PowerQuest first announced that they were going to support resizing of ext2 partitions in Partition Magic 4.0 they promised to (eventualy) release the source code for the ext2 resizing modules under a GPL-like licence. Partition Magic 4.0 has now been out over 2 years, and I have yet to hear of any source-code release announcement from PowerQuest...
So... Where's the code?
--
Loren Osborn
Software isn't software without source code. -- NASA
Re:Where's the (PowerQuest) Code?
by
Jburkholder
·
· Score: 2
Yeah you're right - I bought it too when it came out, can't be any longer ago than last fall. I remember because its one of the few that I've bought by download, and I only got my cable modem last October.
Probably thinking about PM3 that has been out for a couple years. I think I got that one about the time Win95 OSR2 was out with fat32 support, If memory serves.
That doesn't mean that PowerQuest shouldn't release the code soon if that's what they promised!:-)
Re:Where's the (PowerQuest) Code?
by
Jeff+Lightfoot
·
· Score: 2
PowerQuest was to release the code 18 months after the commercial version was released.
This post is by the author of the ext2fs resizer and does not dispute the information that Rik van Riel posted. It was posted 15JUN98, so I guess we can look forward to seeing it in the next few months.
But what about initial install?
by
Booker
·
· Score: 2
This looks pretty cool, but will it help people who are installing Linux for the first time? People are always so scared of the partitioning part... If it's a GTK app, you need X, which means you need Linux, which means you need... an ext2 partition. Is there any way this could be used during the initial install, or is it just for post-install maintenance?
Partition Magic Beta's
by
NoWhere+Man
·
· Score: 2
People trusted the beta's of Partition Magic...why not this program?
--
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Windows port 'envisioned'?
by
Jburkholder
·
· Score: 3
Ok, this is great news, just a question, though.
The article says:
"Recently, a new need for hard-drive partioners has been felt with the growing success of Linux: people often want to install Linux on their PC without having to remove Windows(tm)."
Ok fine, but... if this is initially written for Linux, is there going to be a lot of interest? Granted, it would be great if an installer could resize your partitions for you on the fly to make room for Linux. I guess from my perspective, I'd be more comfortable using a 3rd-party package like Powerquest PM4 to do the changes from within windows and make sure that it still works before doing a Linux install.
But then, that's just me. I hope this does well, I'm just scratching my head wondering if the targeted users for this would really be interested. Who knows?
Re:Windows port 'envisioned'?
by
Jburkholder
·
· Score: 2
>This tool does not have to run under Windows to still be very useful.
Right, I understand that, I don't dis-agree. I just meant that a first-time Linux installer might be wary of something like this. From my experience (not *all* that long ago) installing Linux on a Windows machine, the scariest part was repartitioning to free up space for Linux.
I guess my experience was that running PQPM and then booting windows to make sure it was still there felt a little safer to me than if there was some 'out of the box' solution to do it during the install. Once I was comfortable that Windows was still working, I had no qualms about firing up the RedHat installer.
OTOH, an integrated partitioner in an installer would be great for users that don't care. But I already paid my $30 for PM and it works great so I don't personally have much interest in this (especially if it cannot resize ext2 partitions on the fly without losing data).
That goes along with anything in "beta" or earlier. If you are not a developer, or fairly intelligent tester (ie you can say more than, "it broke my hard drive") you should not use betas of anything unless you accept the chance or ruining things. If you are real cautious of disk partitioning programs, wait until a few weeks after version 1.0 is released. Then read mail lists and do research to make sure the more adventurous folks are using it without problem. Then maybe, give it a shot yourself.
I haven't bought Partition Magic myself, but does anyone want to guess if their EULA has a line like, "PowerQuest is not responsible for any damage done to your computer..."? I'd prefer an Open Source product for such a task. If the $50 (or whatever) for PM doesn't get you any guarantee, what hope is there? If I'm wrong, and they do take responsibility say so, I would commend them, but I have yet to see a piece of software for Windows that does not have a line like the above in the EULA.
I'm pretty sure that Caldera uses the frame buffer feature during it's install of OpenLinux 2.2. Friendly looking graphics during installation, and it lets you play Tetris during most of it. (It also includes the older text-based installation tools)
resize their disk partitions, which is still a delicate operation, only permitted by some hard-to-use text based programs like "fips" or other proprietary software.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't fips open source? Maybe it is freeware, is it commerical binary only? I remeber downloading (binary) for dos....
Slashdot Mirror
I hope the authors remember that Linux supports a bunch of different disk partitioning schemes (DOS and MacOS to name two), and provide a consistent interface regardless of what partitioning scheme is used. If this same tool can be used to manage partitions on my Linux/x86, Linux/Alpha and Linux/mac68k boxes, it becomes much more useful.
The first released version of DiskDrake is beta software, but it should improve rapidly with the contribution of the free-software community.
Just make sure you've got at least 2 backups of your drive first. I wouldn't let partitioning software that's in need of rapid improvement anywhere near my hard drive.
Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes.
She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings.
At first glance, DiskDrake appears to be a very great step for Linux - no more reliance on Disk Druid or fips or Partition Magic, or whatever. However, it's missing one feature Partition Magic has which really sets Partition Magic apart - it can't resize ext2 drives. According to the website,
resize partitions (when not caring loosing its data)
That sounds to me like no ext2 resize-on-the-fly support. It's not needed often, but when it is, it's a really nice feature to have. I've had to install Linux multiple times after adding/removing DOS partitions for whatever reason, and it's no fun. DiskDrake looks like a great program, definitely a step up, but until it gets ext2 resize support, Partition Magic's the way to go for ext2 resize, DiskDrake/fips/whatever for your Linux partition manager of choice.
-David Ziegler
-dziegler@hotmail.com
-David Ziegler
-
So... Where's the code?
Loren Osborn
This looks pretty cool, but will it help people who are installing Linux for the first time? People are always so scared of the partitioning part... If it's a GTK app, you need X, which means you need Linux, which means you need... an ext2 partition. Is there any way this could be used during the initial install, or is it just for post-install maintenance?
People trusted the beta's of Partition Magic...why not this program?
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Ok, this is great news, just a question, though.
The article says:
"Recently, a new need for hard-drive partioners has been felt with the growing success of Linux: people often want to install Linux on their PC without having to remove Windows(tm)."
Ok fine, but... if this is initially written for Linux, is there going to be a lot of interest? Granted, it would be great if an installer could resize your partitions for you on the fly to make room for Linux. I guess from my perspective, I'd be more comfortable using a 3rd-party package like Powerquest PM4 to do the changes from within windows and make sure that it still works before doing a Linux install.
But then, that's just me. I hope this does well, I'm just scratching my head wondering if the targeted users for this would really be interested. Who knows?
What I would like to see is a FIPSish tool for NTFS. That would be really helpful for installing Linux in corporate settings.
If they can put that into this tool, it could well become the standard partitioning tool.
That goes along with anything in "beta" or earlier. If you are not a developer, or fairly intelligent tester (ie you can say more than, "it broke my hard drive") you should not use betas of anything unless you accept the chance or ruining things. If you are real cautious of disk partitioning programs, wait until a few weeks after version 1.0 is released. Then read mail lists and do research to make sure the more adventurous folks are using it without problem. Then maybe, give it a shot yourself.
I haven't bought Partition Magic myself, but does anyone want to guess if their EULA has a line like, "PowerQuest is not responsible for any damage done to your computer..."? I'd prefer an Open Source product for such a task. If the $50 (or whatever) for PM doesn't get you any guarantee, what hope is there? If I'm wrong, and they do take responsibility say so, I would commend them, but I have yet to see a piece of software for Windows that does not have a line like the above in the EULA.
To make this perfect, they should do a version with an ncurses or newt frontend, so you can put it on a single-floppy distribution of Linux.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
The Windows 2000b3 installer still partitions disk the old fashion way (DOS FDISK + NT blue screen installer to format).
(Having a Linux eqiv for Disk Mungler would be nice, though.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I'm pretty sure that Caldera uses the frame buffer feature during it's install of OpenLinux 2.2. Friendly looking graphics during installation, and it lets you play Tetris during most of it. (It also includes the older text-based installation tools)
----
Open mind, insert foot.
resize their disk partitions, which is still a delicate operation, only permitted by some hard-to-use text based programs like "fips" or other proprietary software.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't fips open source? Maybe it is freeware, is it commerical binary only? I remeber downloading (binary) for dos....