Installing Linux on Windows XP machine
 

First of all, I'm a total newbie to Linux and having two OS's on one machine, so forgive me if I say anything stupid.

I have a computer with a HD of 40 GB partitioned into two logical disks (C and D) of both 20 GB. On C windows XP (Home edition) is installed, disk D is totally empty. Now I want to install Linux on my computer, but I don't want to use the entire D disk. Is it possible to partion this disk in, say, 5 GB (for Linux) and 15 GB, without using special software like Partition Magic ?

The Linux version I want to install is Red Hat (I don't know which version) and/or Debian.
My second question is: does anybody know if these versions have the same functionality ? So, for example do they have the same support for C, and can they both support the Geforce 2 graphics card ?

welcome to the newbie club ...
 

hey ...

you cant resize your HD with out using tools ... too bad there aint a button "resize!" ... you CAN play with resizing partitions on the linux installers ... i dont know if you can set them to fat though
(fat is the standard windows filesystem)

or you can use fdisk ... which aint complicated ... just seems so because its in dos :)

ive never used partition magic ... but ive heard that it resized in windows with scroll bars ... not sure tho ...

most of nix distros are pretty much the same ... only a couple things differ ... you can file through your fat filesystems (windows drives) no prob there ...

for you GF2 ... there shouldnt be a problem ...

hope my help has been of use ...

Lep!

So if I understand correctly I can resize my harddisk with fdisk and I don't need Partition Magic.
And the other things I saw as a problem aren't really problems at all.

If that's the case I only have to figure out how fdisk (or in the case of Windows XP diskpart.exe; fdisk is not supported) works and I'm ready to install Linux. But I'd probably better not ask anyone here how diskpart works ;) .

Thanks for your help leprechaun.

So if I understand correctly I can resize my harddisk with fdisk and I don't need Partition Magic.
And the other things I saw as a problem aren't really problems at all.

If that's the case I only have to figure out how fdisk (or in the case of Windows XP diskpart.exe; fdisk is not supported) works and I'm ready to install Linux. But I'd probably better not ask anyone here how diskpart works ;) .

Thanks for your help leprechaun.

better ask if you dont know
 

if you dont know how to use it ... (like me, u told me that existed btw :) ) ... better ask rather than making some mistake ... mistakes in that area are often indesireable ... :)

NP - lep!

No you cannot re-size partitions with fdisk. Fdisk is for making and deleting partitions of FAT and FAT32 only. You should try using a program like fipps or parted (Linux). I have used FIPPS and it works great. Basically you can re-size what has been allocated for Windows, for example suppose you have a 20 GB Hard Drive in which all the space has been given to Windows, you could divide the disk so that the windows portion only uses 15 GB and then the remaining 5 GB would be designated as unallocated space which you could then load your Linux distribution on. It is actually a very easy process provided your hardware is not ancient.........

GOOD LUCK!

Partition magic
 

i highly recommend using partition magic its easy and reliable
:D

I'm getting a bit confused. Can or can't I use diskpart/fdisk to create a new partition on my D-disk ? I'd rather not have to buy an expensive program like partition magic.

Tnx everebody for your help.
I've partitioned my D-disk with diskpart in WinXP. I found out that this can be done without Partition Magic if you're prepared to lose all the data on that disk. Well there wasn't anything on it to begin with so ...
So now I'm ready to install Linux. Hope all goes wel ;)