[Bio-Linux] (no subject)

[Siddharth Ray]

Siddharth Ray wrote:

I am facing the following problems :

1.)  I used fdisk on /dev/hda and got the following:
     (This machine happens to be a Dell cloned with biolinux)

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 9726.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

For /dev/hdb it is showing 16127 unallocated sectors (using v of fdisk)
p shows /dev/hdb1  start->1 End->9725 Blocks->78116031 Id->7
System->HPFS/NTFS

Another error message which was generated was that:
The cylinders are overlapping...

The cylinder size is set at the time of loading linux. However, is there any
specific reason for setting the cylinder size to 9726. I think the default is
1024 and at least it can be a multiple of that. I know a couple of systems
having cylinder size other than 1024 but the main thing that worries me is the
cylinder overlapping and stuff. Another thing which I wanted to point to is
that the machine which was cloned had 2 hard disks, but the 2nd hard disk was
never mounted. Hence, if the linux system is being loaded via CD etc then it
should acknowledge the 2nd hard disk.

I am not exactly worried as of now of the 9726 thing but the error message which
is generated.


2.) Is it that biolinux can only be installed on a Dell machine. Is it company
specific because to my knowledge I have never heard of any OS to be company
specific unless their architecture is drastically different. I am new to this
lab and the notion that people are having is that only Dell machines can be
cloned. 



Any suggestions...
-Siddharth
"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."
- Kahlil Gibran

MS, Department of Computer Sc. & Engg,
Pond Lab, State College,
PA - 16802, USA.