I have a 80GB HDD and have partitioned it into 3 parts as follows:

C: 5GB,
D: 15GB and
E: 60GB

I have partitioned using the fdisk which was there in win2K pro edition.

Win2K is working fine... I have not been able to format 60GB in windows.

I have put my RH9.0 CD 1 and have opted for Diskdruid for partitioning... and it gives the following details:

Hard Drives:
/dev/hda
/dev/hda1 vfat 4997 1 637
/dev/hda2 Extended 71312 638 9728
/dev/hda5 vfat 14998 638 2549
/dev/hda6 Win95 Fat16 56314 2549 9728
Free Free Space 8

I want to install RH9.0 in the /dev/hda6 partition... So please let me know how I can format this and how much I should be giving for
1. /
2. /swp
3. /home

and what other folders I should create. Also let me know what filesystem I should choose for each of these...

In another system which has both win2k and RH8.0 the /etc/fstab file looks as follows:

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults,usrquota 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
LABEL=/home /home ext3 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto,owner,kudzu 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,owner,kudzu,ro 0 0
/dev/hda1 /mnt/win auto defaults 0 0

Hoping to get some replies... as I want to have RH9.0 installed today...

I believe RH9 has a fine GUI partitioner to do the "hard" work for you.
But with DiskDruid it shouldn't be too hard either...

For the partitions you want to create, and what size they are, that really depends on your system-requirements.

Where do you use the most diskspace? What is your critical data? Are you going to setup an environment where users can store their data? Planning on running an FTP server? Webserver ?

All this will influence the way you would want to setup your partitions.

If you just want to freak around a bit on this linux-box, and you will be the only user on it, there's no need to do hard work on partitioning. I usually create a /boot partition of 100MB and a swap partition a bit more then my RAM. (Although I read somewhere that even that is not really needed, bout 70MB should be enough, but, I'm no expert) and configure the rest as / But this is only on a machine where I am the only user, and i just freak around a bit.


If you plan to run as a server for users (ftp or just network-server) then you should split the home folders-partition from your system-partition. (Imagine some crazy user consuming all your diskspace, and your system is on the same partition, then your system will crash due to the disk being full, especially when you run an ftp-server with anonymous write access, this is not an uncommon problem)

So, as you can see, there are several ways to partition your disk, and everyone has his/her own flavour.

Satch.

Well, I have 256MB RAM, so I would like to create swap of abt 512MB.

After reading from RH9.0 installation from redhat.com, I understand that I need to create /boot, / and /home directories...

I don't know the file format in which these should be fit... and how much space I should give...

I dont intend to install any server on this system... It will be used as a stand alone, I intend to do my programmingand use it to browse the internet.

In that case, IMHO a /boot of 100MB a swap of (i.e.) 512 and the rest for your root partition would do it... why bother creating a lot of partitions then?

Satch

Hi Ashesh

If you want Red Hat 9 somewhere on the end of your drive you shouldn't partition that section in advance with Win2k - the idea is to use Win2k just to partition the first 2 partitions you want ie C, D

Then leave the rest of the drive as FREE SPACE - then when you install Red Hat 9 - choose the Custom install option and install in the existing free space

By default Red Hat 9 will create a Boot, Root and Swap partition - technically you only need a Root and Swap partition - Red Hat is clever enough that if it see's there's no boot partition - it will install the relevent kernel in the boot directory of the root partition.

I personally find it easiest to let Red Hat automatically install in the existing free space then Manually edit the partitions that Red Hat has created - ie deleting, resizing adding to etc

For the Red Hat Root partition you want to format an ext3 filesystem on it - for the Swap partition its obviously "Swap"

If you really did want to go with a boot, root,swap and home partition then these sizes would be sufficient

• boot = 100mb
• root = 8gb
• swap = 500mb
• home = 10gb

(depending on what you want to use it for)

You can get a nice Red Hat 9 installation for about 1.5 - 2gb

Well, I have not been able to partition the 56GB HDD with diskdruid. So I have opted to install partition magic and format the drive into Linux Ext2 filesystem...

As soon as thath is over I would reboot with my RH9.0 CD-1 and try to partition into /sqap, /boot, /, and /home..

but what file systems should I choose for each iof these?

Hi Skyline,

I didn't know that I need to partition the whole HD into 2 parts only... I have made it into 3 parts and have installed win2k in C:, and have my data/music files in D:.

Now I am left with E: only where I would like to install Linux. So does this mean that I would not be able to do that... Do I have to combine C and D using some software like partition magic ...

What do you suggest?

No, you can leave C: and D: alone.

According to what you posted, /dev/hda6 (the E) is a Fat16 partition and you have 8 Gigabytes of free space.

I suggest deleting the Fat16 partition. You will then be able to use the 8 Gigabytes of free space.

Then use your Linux CDs and let Linux automatically partition for you. Linux will partition using ext3.

Hi Mathieu,

I have just completed combining C and D into C of size 20GB.

Now I have 60GB of free space with me and the diskdruid table looks as follows:

[code]

Hard Drives:
/dev/hda
Free Freespace <1 1 1
/dev/hda1 vfat 19995 1 2549
/dev/hda2 Extended 56314 2550 9728
Free Free space 56314 2550 9728
Free Free Space 10 9729 9730

I want to install Linux into /dev/hda2, which is 56GB and is of extended format and I don;t know if I have partitioned that space or not...

There are New, Edit, Delete, Reset etc buttons on the diskdruid screen... I dont know how to divide the whole 56GB space into parts and allot for swap, root, boot and home...

You mentioned you had Partition Magic.

I would first delete the Extended partition.
And for some reason, you have a 1 MB of free space at the beginning of the HD, I don't know way that is.
May want to merge that into the vfat ( win2k ).

During the installation of RedHat, right after you select the Installation Type,
there is the Disk Partitioning Setup with two options. Select the Automatically Partition option.
Then it is Automatic Partitioning. Make sure the checkbox Review (and modify if needed) the partitons created is checked.

RedHat will created partitions in ext3 based on the Installation Type you selected.

Hi Ashesh

As I said before - you only need to use Win2k's fdisk utility to create partitions for Win2k to go on - you DON'T need to use Win2k's fdisk utility to set up a partition in advance for Red Hat to go on - Red Hat has partitioning tools bult into its anaconda installer - just let Red Hat partition the existing free space on the end of your drive and let it install itself on - As I said before - with a custom install you can always manually edit any partitions that Red Hat creates for you.

Thanks Mathieu and Skyline,

I have been finally able to install RH9.0.

Here's what I have done:

Used Partition Magic to merge my 5 and 15GB fat32 windows partitions.
And "Deleted" the rest of the space.

Then I put my RH9.0 CD-1.. and opted diskdruid for partioning etc...

Here are the details of how I partitioned:

/dev/hda5 100MB /boot
/dev/hda6 8GB /root
/dev/hda7 500MB /swap
/dev/hda8 48GB /home

I choose most of the packages that were available and the total space that is occupied in / is 2.39GB, which is 31%

I am able toaccess the internet and things seems to be fine except for the follwoing problems:

1. I am not able to telnet to the system in which I have just installed linux. I am able to telnet from that system to any other system

2. I am not able to ftp from the new system to any other system, but I am able to ftp from is to ftp frp, it to other...

I remember that I need to set some permissions so that it will accept connections... could you please let me know how to do this...

hi ppl,

still not able to connect to my RH9.0 using telnet/ftp

can someone let me know tha changes I ned to make so that I can connect to the system....

I think I need to make some changed in xined file, but I don't have exact idea...

Use the following command to search for Telnet server
rpm -qa | grep telnet-server

Then for an ftp server (wu-ftpd, proftpd, ...)
rpm -qa | grep ftp

If you don't find them, you will need to install telnet-server and an FTP server.


Once installed, you will need to activate them.
I suggest you use RedHat's service configuration GUI tool. Look under system in the menu.

Here's the outcome of the search....

[root@rcc4 guest]# rpm -qa|grep telnet-server
telnet-server-0.17-25
[root@rcc4 guest]# rpm -qa|grep ftp
lftp-2.6.3-3
ftp-0.17-17
gftp-2.0.14-2
vsftpd-1.1.3-8
ncftp-3.1.5-4
[root@rcc4 guest]#

And when I try to telnet:
[root@rcc4 guest]# telnet 144.16.201.158
bash: telnet: command not found
[root@rcc4 guest]#

ftp from my new system to other works fine, but I am not able to connect from other systems to the new one....

It says "ftp: connect: no route to host"