Post A0bOfFXdO2b23sm7MG by clarjon1@connected.cat6.network
 (DIR) More posts by clarjon1@connected.cat6.network
 (DIR) Post #A0bOfB0WFDjM01FcBc by BlacKernel@nixnet.social
       2020-10-27T23:13:10.836081Z
       
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       I understand that this is not a practical question, but I mean it more as a technical challenge as part of a larger project I have planned.Does anyone know how I can get a Linux distro to BOOT from an NTFS partition? I am okay with it being an impractical amount of work, I just need a direction to start in before I resort to just reading the entire documentation for the filesystem and hacking away on a compilation of grub/the kernel.
       
 (DIR) Post #A0bOfFXdO2b23sm7MG by clarjon1@connected.cat6.network
       2020-10-27T23:23:23.707090Z
       
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       @BlacKernel I've not done this myself, but based on what I know...First things first, you'll need to get your bootloader to be able to read from NTFS partitions. I know that GRUB has the ability, shown here on https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/GRUB2/Chainloading -- meant for loading the windows bootloader but in theory, couuuuuld let you get the kernel going? You'll also need to muck about with the initrd generation configs to get whatever modules are needed for the kernel to be able to read ntfs partitions on boot crammed in there.  I remember needing to do this for booting from some other filesystems like zfs in the past.
       
 (DIR) Post #A0bP1rqDfaVTDWFkyO by BlacKernel@nixnet.social
       2020-10-27T23:24:57.431233Z
       
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       @clarjon1 Thank you! I’ll look into this. This is going to be a lot of work for an April Fools joke, but I’m hoping I can get it working.
       
 (DIR) Post #A0bP1s3grVHXtIYVyC by clarjon1@connected.cat6.network
       2020-10-27T23:27:31.714346Z
       
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       @BlacKernel some quick searchin shows that the most reliable folks have gotten this to work in the past is to create a large file in the ntfs partition and use that file as a filesystem. may not be what you want exactly, but could be a viable thing to make it look ntfs in the partition table for shenanigans
       
 (DIR) Post #A0bPGjGdpTsqyAhMWW by BlacKernel@nixnet.social
       2020-10-27T23:29:28.614271Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @clarjon1 It isn’t installing TO the NTFS partition, it has a separate ext4 /boot partition that it runs from. This is what a normal person would do for a joke, but, because of the audience for this particular “shenanigan,” I want to make sure it is legitimate.
       
 (DIR) Post #A0bPGo2e4wevmDBku0 by clarjon1@connected.cat6.network
       2020-10-27T23:30:12.728565Z
       
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       @BlacKernel completely fair and what i was expecting, but was just floating it along in case the option hadn't crossed your radar yet :)