NEED HELP FAST: Installing Fedora and Using DiskDruid
 

OK, I tried using diskdruid and I got the following error: Could not allocate partitions.

So, if someone please tell me exactly what to do to get what I want, I will be eternally grateful!

I want:

A 25GB partition for Linux
(Seperate from my windows partiton)

I have:

250GB total hd
1GB RAM
3.4 gHz

Please tell me in the simplest to understand way! :(

First things first - defrag your XP partition so that any data that is towards the end of the drive, is moved closer towards the front. This will prevent any data loss.
Next boot into linux with CD.
Follow steps until you get to the partitioning portion.
1. Leave the NTFS (windows xp) partition alone - unless you want to have a heart attack.
2. create a min of 3 partitions (all paritions totaling your target of about 26 to 27 GB (1-2 GB for swap)
a. partition 1 - format with a ext3 or reiser filesystem (mount this as /)
b. partition 2 - format with a ext3 or reiser filesystem (mount this as /home)
c. at this point if you want to make more partitions, you can and mount them as /usr or /tmp or /var .... you get the picture.
d. partition x - format as linux swap (you don't have to mount it)
3. follow the rest of the steps to install linux.

guys/girls, if I am forgeting something or missed something, add it.

Thank you SO much! I was docs were this easy...

So.... You are ceryaom that's all?

What is ceryaom?

think that's supposed to be certain...

amazing how two typos can butcher one word....;-)

Yeah, that's 'certain'. My fingers must have moved over a bit...

I am not 100% certain because everyone has a slightly different way of doing things. So far not a whole lot of people have posted, I don't know...maybe I did say everything that everyone would want to say, however I don't claim to know a lot about linux. I just started taking a class on installation and security on it. Maybe someone will put their suggestions in the thread. I will tell you this, from my own experience, BACK things up. Just in case you mess things up - you never know. I've lost some minor documents that I needed, however I had hardcopies of everything. That's all....

Does he need to create (and mount) a /boot partition?

I just assumed, because FC1 makes, for example, a /dev/hda1 mounted at /boot that is very small - probably 500M or so (not at my machine right now), that it was needed, and just made one for my in-progress slackware install.

Other than that, I think he's going to need to be resizing the current NTFS partition before he can make the new ones in the resulting free space. Unless he's already got it partitioned into more than one.

Ugoff, when you're in windows do you have just a C: drive, or did you have others like D: and E:, etc that were NOT your cdrom drives?

Let us know. If you did only have C:, you're going to need to resize it before you can create the new partitions for linux. I think the installer will do that for you, but I'm not sure as I haven't had to do so myself. Be careful though, make sure you don't change the filesystem type or reformat the windows partition.

Let us know if you have concerns before you begin this. It's understandably intimidating sometimes, especially when oyu have data you can't lose...

I have one C: drive... I have a C: drive, and the other two are my disk and burner,

Ugh, I'm hoping to install Fedora as soon as possible! Please, I need help!

Sorry to keep you...

Assuming you've followed the above advice and defragmented your hard drive already, which if you haven't you absolutely have to do. This is done through the windows start menu -> programs -> system tools -> disk defragmenter...

Okay. Boot from the first Fedora CD. Start the install process. When it comes to the part where it asks you if you want to partition your disk, choose yes, then choose manually. Now, as I have no means to walk through this myself before I advise you, you're going to have to be a little intuitive as you go.

It should come up with a list of the partition(s) on your hard drive. In your case this will likely be only one. Select it, and look for something that mentions resizing it. As I said, I've not done this yet so I have no idea what the different screens will look like or what you're going to be clicking on or selecting. From my experience, however, this should all be pretty straight forward...

Okay, I assume it will now give you the option (if you're lucky, it'll give you some sort of graphical representation of the hard drive with marks that you can slide back and forth indicating thwere the partitions begin and end...if you're lucky...) of deciding the new size of your CURRENT partition, that is, you'r C: drive. Make that 25G smaller, and if it asks, have it at the beginning of the drive. Now, I assume you'll be able to select the newly created free space, and choose to create a partition on it. Do, so, and use MOST of the 25G we've set aside. We need to leave some swap space, and to determine the size of it we need to know how much RAM you have. Well, WE don't need to know, but you do. The swap space should be twice the size of your RAM, meaning if you have 512M of RAM you'll want 1G swap. 128M RAM = 256M swap, and so on...

So, subtract the amount you'll need to make your swap space from the 25G, and that's how big you want to make the first partition in your free space. When it asks, make it ext3 format, unless you plan on accessing it from windows as well, in which case make it FAT32.

Next, select the remaining space we've left for swap, choose to create a partition on it, and use all the available space you have left. When it asks, choose linux swap as the format for this one.

Now you're pretty much done. FInd the button or whatever that you click to commit the changes and perform the resize, etc. If it asks, you MUST install a boot loader and if I'm not mistaken it MUST be installed in the MBR. This is, of course, unless you just make a floppy boot disk, which is the safest but most annoying in my opinion.

I think you'll be okay. Everything I have have to do so far with the fedora installations has been very starightforward and east. I think you'll be fine.

Good luck to you, let us konw if you get stuck.

Take the plunge...

OK I have a bootloader, so I'm gonna try what you said. If possible, please stay online for a bit!

Grrr.... I have no option to resize, just format. >:o

God! Everytime I try partitioning with some software, I get some gay error. >:o

Ugh, I am really pissed.

Hmmm....

Damn, I have the fedora core 3 disks too, and I could try this once, but for whateever reason my first disk has always stopped at "running /sbin/loader" and literally never comes back...

Well, what the hell, I'll try it again and see if I can get a look at what options you have. You may also be able to use some other "built-in" progs like cfdisk or fdisk right from the boot menu of the first install disk, so let me see if they'll magically work for me this tiem and I'll get back to you in a bit...

Be patient. If all else fails, I suggest you just download fedora core 1 and use that. It seems the most stable to me. It's only on SOME of the mirror sites nowadays, so you have to keep looking through them until you find it...

Get back to you shortly...