On seeing Slackware 10 on the front of a Linux Format mag, I decided to give it a whirl (no more rpms!!). Just wondering on how I should install it.

I have two hard disks, both 20gb.

On one is XP, the whole lot has been formatted NTFS.

(hdc1)On the second, I have partition "Bridge" which is 3gb FAT 32, so I can move files between OSs.

(hdc2)Then I have my boot partition for RedHat 9 which is 102mb.

(hdc3)On my / of RedHat I have 14.8gb of space, I have ~11gb which is free.

(hdc4)Then I have something which is about 760mb of Win95 Ext'd (LBA) . Don't know what that is, I think RedHat did it.

(hdc5) I have Linux swap, not sure how big it is though, but Slack could share it as it is volatile?

I also have something which isn't on any fs, and is on /dev/shm. It isn't very helpful that most of the things I use to check how much space I have give different answers. Like df, KDE Control Panel, fdisk -l. But I deduce that about 1337mb (sighs) is shared between the swap and "/dev/shm".

Currently I am going through on bootup "Select OS (etc etc) Windows or RedHat. I select Windows, boots straight into it. Select RedHat, and I get (LILO? - it doesn't look like GRUB) RedHat or DOS. Select RedHat....uncompressing vmlinuz etc etc.

So I am really asking for two things, can I split up my / partition non-destructively, and allocate a partition to Slackware and one to RedHat? How would I set up something to boot into Slackware, and not muck up XP?

Sorry about the "verbosity" but I see a lot of "More information needed" replies, and I guess you might as well get it right the first time.

hal; no idea how u installed what on where? how ever ur choice, via bios u
may boot from both depending how u config bios to boot which drive of ur choice would be 1st & 2nd. that would determine which drive u choose to partition for both linux distros. as for w95 probalbly abberant left over on other drive. xtrfred to where it now resides. copy it & reinstall with xp if u want to keep. other wise just copy it & store or toss.

I'd like to add that there is ALWAYS a risk of accidental data loss, make sure to back up first.

I was waiting for that one, I will back up all my web-dev stuff on RedHat, but do I really need to back up XP as it is on a totally different hd? Any good non-destructive partitioning tools?

hal; If (big if) xp is totally in its own partition (separately) from linux not necessarily need to back up but always good idea regardless whether backing up linux. u may give control to software or become good adminisrator to ur system by researching & learning howto do everything &
be in control always. up to You! the more u know the easier it is.