Newbie: mkfs utility for BeOS fs in linux

1

Is there a utility like mkfs to format partitions for haiku in linux?

I have been unable to get haiku on a partition using a USB drive( kernel panic ) so I tried installing to disk but since my system is UEFI, I cannot use makebootable to directly boot into the partition which leaves me with no other option but to manually copy the contents of my USB drive to the required partitions(ESP and /dev/nvme1n1p3 in my case). To do that, I need to format /dev/nvem1n1p3 to BeOS fs on linux.

tldr; I need haiku on a partition of a UEFI x86_64 system without using a USB drive. How to?

2

First please report this panic.
Apart from the partition size there is no functional difference between a USB install and a on-didk install, so chances are your install would fail regardless.

Once the KDL is fixed you could use the usb installer as normal.

But to answer your question: I don’t think linux can partition bfs.

3

You can create a bfs partition with fdisk in linux (note that they are called befs partitions.) but you can’t format them. The reason is probably that the bfs driver included in the linux kernel tree, and shipped as module on distros, does only reading. Another driver using fuse exists, it can do write operations but, you have to compile it yourself and I don’t think that it comes with tools.

EDIT:
Well, it is possible with fdisk on mbr disk. Partition type is eb BeOS fs
On efi systems, disk are using gpt scheme, you have to use gdisk. The partition type is eb00 Haiku BFS

3 Likes
4

I installed the latest nightly build: hrev58412 onto the USB by dd’ing to the drive
booting first time using USB:

image
image1920Ă—1440 389 KB

when booting using safe mode consequently:

image
image1920Ă—2560 471 KB

Is there a better to get the kernel log other than the images I have attached above or using a serial port?

I am on a dell XPS 9520 using arch linux.

5

I see messages in the log about a “SanDisk 3.2 Gen1” USB drive, is that the drive that you are trying to boot Haiku from? It looks like it’s detected correctly and works, so if so, I wonder why we fail to find the boot partitions here.

If trying to install from Linux, I guess the best way to do this would be to spin up a VM with write access to the disk partition you are trying to install to, and let Haiku install itself onto the partition.

6

I see messages in the log about a “SanDisk 3.2 Gen1” USB drive, is that the drive that you are trying to boot Haiku from?

precisely.

If trying to install from Linux, I guess the best way to do this would be to spin up a VM with write access to the disk partition you are trying to install to, and let Haiku install itself onto the partition.

sounds interesting, will do that for now.
Regd. the panic issue I have tried a few more things since:

  1. Tried booting from the same USB stick on a friends laptop and it worked so my image is fine.
  2. I have gotten varying amounts of success with each attempt. Got past the rocket and to the installer once. But, it did not recognize any of my internal hard drives.