Hi all
Im a newbie and tried to install linux7.0 on my PC a couple of times and failed
Im currently running windows.
I have a 40 Gb Hd.
Now here is what i know.
First i have to make a partition of 2Gb(lets say)
then i have to make a swap partition
I made these partitions by using partition magic which assigns there respective filesystem to them.
I name the 2.0 Gb partition "/" during linux installation
for swap one i don't remember
NOw i have read about some sort of boot partition whic should be named as /boot during installation .
What that boot partition does and is it necessary .

Hi darklight. That linux you are talking about, Linux 7.0, is that a distribution?, is that the exact name?..I'm just wondring.
Well, anyway, for simplicity of things, you basically need 3 partitions other than your present operating sistem, whether it be windows or macos. Anyway, you got 40 gigs, why you wanna give so little to linux???, I suggest to simply split the hardrive into 2. Leave windows with 20 gigs and give the other 20 to Linux. If you are making partitions with partitioner magic, good for you that I have used that before, well you get that bar that represents your entire hardrive. remember that you need to quit windows and run partitioner magic in Dos for it not to crash. Well, if you want to be extra careful, you should defragment your hardrive in windows, so all the data is at the beginning of the hardrive, and nothing may be lost during partitioning. After you are done, then run partitioner magic, The first thing you should make is a Boot Loading screen. Paritioner magic is nice and has this ability. Tell it you want to put this boot loader in the master boot record (MBR). And then, that way it will be before than any partition, and you'll be able to boot without any problems. Well, that is your first partition. Your second partition is your Swap partition.
Depending on your RAM, usually people make swap space twice the ram. This eventually behaves like extra RAM memory. And that should be called Swap.
And last but not least, you need a partition that will take the rest of the disk. Linux Native.
So, this should sort of look like:

MBR /boot
Winblows partition
Swap partition
Linux Native partition

And on the bar that appears in partitioner magic they should appear in the above order from top to bottom, but on the bar of course it will be from left to right. After than, save and exit.

Now you're ready to install Linux. Note that if your installing distribution is other than what you called "Linux 7.0", like Suse, Mandrake, or Redhat, they will come with Disk druid and you don't have to use partitioner magic at all...

Hope everything works out,

zLinuxz

its only necesarry if U want and if Ur partition on wich linux is installed and should be bootes is over the 1024 cylinder of Ur hdd. in that case booting will be not able with old lilo versions

>>>Alois

Edit: uh, zLinuxz was much faster tahn i