AndLinux

Mount

Mounting a .dvi drive file

Say you have a file D:\andlinux\drives\base.vdi. To mount it in AndLinux, add to your settings.txt:

cobd0=D:\andlinux\drives\base.vdi

Mounting a physical drive/partition/cdrom/usb

References:

• Wiki Partitions page
• The Wiki FAQ
• an AndLinux forum post

To mount an existing drive or partition, add to your settings.txt:

hda=\Device\HarddiskVolume0                    # To mount the whole drive
hda2=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2              # To mount a single partition

Use diskpart.exe to get the number (other alternatives are dd, dmdiag and explore2fs, see [1]).
Caution! To get things even more confusing the windows partition number is not the same as in Linux. Usually you have to use the same number or substract 1 (if not more). As explained on the the Wiki FAQ, this might be due to Windows not allocating number to the extended partition

C:\> diskpart
DISKPART> list disk
DISKPART> select disk 0
DISKPART> list partition
  ...
  Partition 3    Unknown            101 MB    24 GB  <-- \Device\Harddisk0\Partition3
  Partition 4    Extended           125 GB    24 GB  <-- Ignored by Windows
  Partition 5    Logical           3814 MB    24 GB  <-- \Device\Harddisk0\Partition4 !!!
  ...

One can also mount a floppy, cd, usb:

fd0=\Device\Floppy0 
cdrom0=\Device\Cdrom0 
sda1=\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1              # Assuming usb is the 2nd hard disk

Aliases

One can define block device aliases so that to match real linux name, like:

codb3=\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2
hda2=:cobd3

In AndLinux the partition can then be mounted as usual:

mount -t ext3 /dev/hda2 /mnt/hda2

Troubleshooting

Startup delays

• Interaction with Anti-Virus software - AV software may interact with the startup of AndLinux, typically by maintaining a lock on the 4GB disk image file base.drv while it is scanned.
  • Solution: To prevent this, one can exclude the andlinux directory from the AV on-access scanner. In McAfee, this is done by opening the VirusScan console → double-ckick On-Access Scanner → then select All Processes → open the pane Detection and click the button Exclusions... → click Add... to add a new exclusion → Browse to AndLinux directory and select Also exclude subfolders.
• Stalling when mounting / - You experience a huge delay during the startup process, and when launching the FLTK console, you observe that andlinux is stalling on the message below.

ReiserFS: cobd0: warning: sh-2021: reiserfs_fill_super: can not find reiserfs on cobd0
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
Modules already installed.
Closing /
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds

• Solution: The fix proposed in this post is to actually change the extension of the disk image file from .drv to something like .drive (ie. change ./Drives/base.drv to ./Drives/base.drive and ./Drives/swap.drv to ./Drives/swap.drive) and adapt the configuration files ./settings.txt accordingly.

Network issues

• TAP Interfaces - Reference coLinux page. Some forum posts: [2], [3].
• Message Network cable unplugged for TAP interface even when AndLinux started.

• Open your settings file settings.txt, and check the configuration line for the tuntap interface

eth1=tuntap,"TAP-Colinux",00:11:22:33:44:55

• Go to Network Connections window. Check that the connection for device named TAP-Win32 Adapter V8 (coLinux) is indeed called TAP-Colinux, as specified above. If not (for instance it is called Local Area Connection or Local Area Connection 2), then rename it!
• Another solution (not tried) from [4]:
  • Control-Panel → Network Connections → right click on the TAP-Win32 connection → Properties → Configure → Advanced → Media Status = Always connected.