how to Dual Boot, Slackware on Vista machine
 

Hi! Im trying to setup a dual boot on my laptop. it had vista installed on it and am having some trouble getting slack ware installed. I have gparted live to partition my drive but am not sure if im using the program properly. I tried resizing my HD before and once I booted the slackware cd, it says i have no linux or linux swap partitions installed:S
I dont wanna screw up my vista OS sooo any help would be much appreciated!

WARNING - I'm not familiar with Vista (have never seen it) so if there's anything weird or new about the filesystem it uses, it's up to you to know about it. Now..

Using Gparted, typically you would want to shrink your Vista partition (Vista has a tool to do this to if I remember correctly) to make room for a new partition where you will install Slackware. Also, you'll want a SECOND small new partition to be used as a SWAP space. If you have ample memory on board, your swap space is not really important, so you can make it small, say 512 MB. If you have low memory, you might want a swap space of maybe 1Gib.

For the Slack partition, assuming you will want to install the full meal deal, plus have your /home folder on there, I suggest making the Slack partition AT LEAST 10 Gib -- Slack will consume about 4Gib alone, leaving ~6Gib for your /home folder, for your data, music, whatever.. If you want more space, by all means, make it as big as you like, keeping in mind that a gigantic root partition takes A)longer to do filesystem checks on, B) longer to back up, C) some other reasons..

When you boot the Slackware installer, it will ask you what partitions you wish to use for the installation; select your new empty root partition, and Slack will ask if you want to format it; say "yes" and pick a filesystem. Repeat the process for the swap partition.

Hope this gets you started; if any further questions, ask away!

Sasha

If you have gparted You canjust setup your linux partitions with that it will show a graphical picture of where you are making your partitions and it will show your windows partition so you wont accidentaly write over it. Slack will see your partitions and prompt you from there.

I've only dual-booted with XP, so I've no idea if Vista is any different. But after resizing your Windows partition, leave the resulting space as unallocated. You can create the necessary linux partitions during Slackware installation using cfdisk. After choosing your keyboard layout, enter:
If you need any more details, don't hesitate to ask.

You can use the disk management tool in vista to shrink the vista partition down. It's a good idea to do disk cleanup and defrag before, shrinking partition. Then you can do as brianL suggest.

Hey thanks. just one more question when using gparted and im creating my linux partitions what file systems do I set it to? yah Im a total newb!

For the root partition, you can set it to Ext2, Ext3, or Ext4 (if available) and for the SWAP partition, choose 'swap'.

NOTE though, the Slack installer will offer to re-format the partitions anyhow, so don't be too concerned with the filesystem you choose in Gparted. One of the above should be fine.

Sasha

thanks guys, but when im creating my linux partitions what filesystem do I set them to?

[offtopic]

Hey Brian, have seen less of you over the 'holiday season' -- welcome back!

[/offtopic]

thanks

I thought all the other LQ members deserved a few brianL-free days. :D

HI one more question where do I install LILO umm to superblock or MBR?

To use LILO to boot both OS's, you install it to the MBR. This is the method I have been most familiar with, as in dual booting with XP (which I haven't done in about 3 years, so you may want to wait for a second opinion here ;) )

Installing to the Superblock (or to the root partition instead of the MBR) is done only when you want to chain-load bootloaders, and/or use the Windows bootloader to boot Linux.

In short, I suspect the MBR is what you want, but again, this advice comes with no warranty, so a second opinion would make us both feel better :)

Sasha

Yeah, install to the MBR, it should pick up your Vista partition and add it to the boot options.

worked!~ thanks all!