n00b installing linux!
 

I bought the fedora 6 dvd and am willing to give it a try... i have nothing on my D: drive but E: F: and G: drives are filled with data... will I be able to boot from the fedora dvd and install the OS in D: without wiping out my whole hard disk and losing my data??

Will linux be able to read data from the NTFS drives ( E: F: G: ) ??

Please give ur answers in details.. i'm a total n00b at this thing..

PS: I'm trying to do a dual boot up with xp in my C: drive.. if u think this is too complicated for me.. then please feel free to tell me that..!!

Not sure where you bought it, but Fedora 6 is pretty old, Fedora 8 would be a much better choice. If you have access to a broadband connection and a CD burner, you don't need to buy anything, Fedora is free software.

Also, Linux doesn't conform to the archaic drive letter specifications, the drive won't be called D:, it will be something like /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb, C: would be /dev/hda or /dev/sda.

If you already have windows installed and have an internet connection, you can install fedora 8 using a nice windows net-installer. Save to your desktop and open like you would any normal windows installer .exe

http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html

well... i guess i'll go with booting from dvd... let's see what happens... i'm just worried about losing my data...

like they say... learn from your mistakes... 20 GB of precious data at stake !!!! :p

As has been said, Fedora 6 is a fairly old version and wasn't too keen on NTFS - Fedora 8 will handle your other drives much easier. Dual booting with the Fedora install routine is painless unless you really work at fouling it up!

However before you start I strongly recommend that you back up your essential data to CD/DVD.

John

the link worked like a charm man.. thanx! but i quit at the middle coz otherwise i would lose all data... it says i dont have enough space to install (80GB HDD) so i guess i have to wipe out my hard disk... will do that after i create a backup... :)

thanx again for the help...

wow....80 GB not enough?! Normally during an install, you are given the ability to repartition the hard drive, if you do not already have a linux filesystem partition. You should back up your data before repartitioning, but I have never lost data during a non-destructive repartitioning.

I too find it a surprise that 80GB isn't enough. On my machine I allocated 40 GB to Fedora 8 and it had no problems installing.

However, the link mentioned above also includes links to Parted Magic which would allow you to non destructively re-allocate the partitions on your drive. This is what I did to find my 40 GB. As long as you take it carefully, there should be no problem but take two precautions first. 1: Back up all your data and 2: Defrag your drives before you start.

John

Go ahead a try it :) My advice if the other partition are on different drives then unplug them. your data will be safe :)

80 GB? You could fit about 6 distros in there comfortably.