RFE: Larger ST Mint partitions

[danboid]

It seems that the ST Mint image comprises of four 128 MB partitions but only the first two have anything in them.

Why ship with 2x empty disk partitions?

The very first thing I wanted to do with ST Mint was install gcc from here:

https://github.com/freemint/m68k-atari-mint-gcc

The first partition of ST Mint has about 83 MB free space. Extracting gcc-7.5.0-m68000mint.tar.bz2 into that partition will leave me with less than 4 MB free disk space which we all know isn't going to fly.

I'd like to see partitions 3 and 4 be rid of and the first, system partition be made 2 / 3x bigger so that we can at least install gcc and still have room to breathe.

Can I dynamically resize the partitions within the image or will I just need to create a new image with bigger partitions?

If you agree the partition sizes could be improved then I'll wait for an updated image.

Thanks

[danboid]

I found this info regarding max TOS partition sizes per release:

http://joo.kie.sk/?page_id=345

It seems that you should be safe to increase the ST Mint image partitions to 256 MB and still retain compatibility with TOS 1.0.

I would expect MiNT allows us to use larger partitions for those that don't require TOS compatibiity?

There doesn't seem to be a reason not to increase the ST Mint partitions to at least 256 MB unless I'm missing something?

[EmmanuelKasper]

Just a general note: GitHub issues are not a forum, but a place to track bugs. So if opening a new issue, the title should have either the name of the bug, or a the name of RFE (Request for Enhancement)

When deciding the partition size, we also have to take into consideration that the image is using Atari TOS FAT filesystem, which have specific logical sector not commonly on FAT file systems see https://github.com/EmmanuelKasper/mck/blob/master/Makefile#L9 and also take into consideration the images are currently build on Linux.

If you can manage to create a disk image with the AHDI driver, with 256MB partitions, and which is also accessible following http://meta.libera.cc/2018/07/inspecting-atari-st-hard-disk-image.html then we can raise the partition size, but as you see, there are quite a number of requirements to satisfy first.

[danboid]

I will have a go at that soon and report back.

I found this script to automate mounting Atari disk images like ST Mint under Linux:

https://www.seniorlinuxadmin.co.uk/atari-fs.html

That is was I was going to use to install gcc into the image from Linux but I'm not going to risk it with so little space.

[EmmanuelKasper]

I had a look in that topic again, and since that mck uses mtools to copy data into the Mint partition, there is no need to keep low partition to satisfy the DOS standard of maximum of 4096 logical sectors, thus we could use larger partitions.

Now the thing using Atari AHDI5 I was not able to create on Hatari larger partitions, so we are a bit stuck at finding a redistributable driver which would allow creating larger partitions.

If you are able to create partitions > 127MB with a redistributable driver, please share your steps and the disk image !