Mini-PC Partitioning Tip

[nanZor]

TL;DR : Just a note about repartitioning / resizing your typical internal "mini-pc" with windows installed. As a best practice, if you have done repartitioning or resizing, and shut down, REMOVE THE POWER before powering back up the first time. This allows for proper internal "enumeration" before the OS (windows or porteus) boots again for the first time. Depends upon make / manufacturer, but I feel this is best practice.

I just did all the following from a bootable Porteus usb-stick and much in Gparted. I won't go into super detail, it's more of a fast description of how useful and fun Porteus (and related family) is. Assumes some familiarity, not a newbie guide.

Example:
Porteus 5.1 Alpha boots fine from usb stick on my dinky Bmax B1. It's got Windows 10 internally. Much of that internal NTFS on the lil' emmc drive is wasted since I don't run Windows much on it. But I want to keep it anyway. You know, for Rufus or other utils, whatever. So I don't want to blast it away for a total Linux takeover. Enter the Porteus cool-ness!

Unused port to boot from!
The micro-sd card port doesn't get used much. AHA! Why don't we put the Porteus EFI and Boot folders on that to boot from? Yes! So I grabbed and did a fresh FAT32 format on the micro-sd card, and put efi and boot folder on it. (run the windows exe or the linux sh file if you have to - you know the routine.)

Shrunk the main Windows partition down to something reasonable, and made a new one with that empty space just following it with an ext format. (choose one, not getting into that war.) This is where the Porteus folder is going to go.

SHUT DOWN and REMOVED POWER CORD! Reattached and fired back up.
Allowed it to boot into Windows, it noticed the repartitioning, and fixed it's tables. Fine.

Now with Porteus EFI and Boot folders on the sd-card, changed the bios to fire up from that first. It found the Porteus folder on the new internal ext(x) partition just fine. Although I didn't need to, I edited the porteus.cfg file's APPEND line to point to my new partition because the internal drive isn't going anywhere.

changes=/mnt/mmcblk1p5/porteus

Yeah baby! Use of the sdcard to boot porteus from keeps the usb ports free. Lovin it.

Sorry - reads like a lot, but this didn't take much time at all. I'm sure Nemesis and PorteuX are candidates for doing this too. Seriously, Porteus is more fun than a barrel of monkees.

[Ed_P]

It's got Windows 10 internally.

Install Grub2Win on it and you will be able to boot everything including ISOs directly.

[nanZor]

That's a good option, but on my uefi boxes, all that's needed is the mere presence of the efi and boot folders, and awaaay we go! No exe or sh file installation necessary.

Yep, iso booting works too. But yes, whatever floats your boat to get the job done with Porteus!

[Ed_P]

all that's needed is the mere presence of the efi and boot folders, and awaaay we go! No exe or sh file installation necessary.

None needed with Grub2Win eithor and booting brings up a menu of systems, no Fkey needed.

iso booting works too.

I don't see that option in my Windows 11 EFI menu. How does your Windows 10 EFI system open the ISO's boot files? With my grub2 menu I use the loopback function:

Code: Select all

     set linux_folder=/porteus5.0
     set iso="/ISOs/Porteus/Porteus-CINNAMON-v5.01-x86_64-250130.iso"
     set SaveDat=50save.dat

     if [ ! -z "${loop}" ]; then
        loopback -d loop
     fi     
menuentry " Porteus 5.01 ISO - changes="  --class slackware   --class user-icon-porteus  {

     set Changes=$SaveDat   # porteussave.dat 
     set bootparms="volume=33 reboot=cold extramod=$linux_folder/Modules login=guest \
       changes=EXIT:$linux_folder/changes/$Changes \
       noload=kde;jinn;lxqt;xfce;lxde;mate;open;dat.xzm;mychanges;autonet;pipe" 

     search -f $iso --set=root
     loopback loop $iso
     linux (loop)/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz      from=$iso $bootparms
     initrd (loop)/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz
     }  

No partitioning, no formating needed.

[nanZor]

Oops - I was thinking of iso booting with cheatcodes. Used to edit the porteus.cfg file to multiboot tinycore64 iso. I think, it's been awhile.

I just change my boot order in bios when I want to switch between porteus / windows etc. But you should see me forgetting with the little pile: "Is it Esc, Del, F2, F10, F12..." Oh no! Wrong key - agh, gotta' wait for windows to boot and shut it down...

I suppose I should give grub4win a try one of these days. I'll take your word on it!

[vinnie]

Yeah baby! Use of the sdcard to boot porteus from keeps the usb ports free. Lovin it.

It may be a slow memory compared to other types of memory, but it has characteristics that the others do not:
1) the size that allows memory to be cashed in and made to disappear
2) the robustness
3) physical write protection! and with a distro like porteus or tinycore you can use it without problems.

[nanZor]

Yep. In this case, the sdcard is only used for initial boot from the efi and boot folders, and once in awhile editing the /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg file to change the APPEND options. So no need to be a speed demon or a huge card, and for this boot process, FAT32 is fine and necessary for boot. So simple.