Well I thought I did not need a DOS partition, but it looks like it would be a good thing after all. Laptop is RedHat 7.3 and has lots of work on it in installation. I
don't want to re-install (although that would solve the problem)

Here is my setup

/dev/hda1 /boot
/dev/hda2 /
/dev/hda3 swap

I want to take 10mb from /dev/hda2 and create a /dev/hda4 for DOS.

I have a desktop machine with plenty of room for /dev/hda on it and they are networked with Ethernet. Or is there a way to shrink/split the /dev/hda2 without
extensive copying.

Normally I would not ask for a "please just tell me step by step how to do this" but I want to be really careful with the laptop as it took me a long time to get it "just so" I have done some reading but I don't want to just launch into it myself.

I suppose my first step would be to get NSF working, I have not been able to get that yet.

Thanks for any help.
Ron.

RH 7.3 is damn old - may or may not have the resize tools you need.
What filesystem is the partition you want to resize ???.
Regardless, you *must* backup the data before contemplating screwing around with partitions.

Which "DOS" do you want to install - e.g. if it's Win95, you'll have to move everything.

The machine's only a Pentium MMX, so I use 7.3, others won't install. What tools?

I want to resize /dev/hda2 which is the '/' filesystem. I have about 140mb free and
I only want about 10mb.

I want to use MS DOS 6.22, although I might use FREEDOS.

What is the Linux tool to defrag a filesystem? I don't think I have ever seen one.

'/' is the mountpoint, we need the filesystem type - enter the following command, and post the output here: "df -hT" (that's an upper case T).
Different filesystem types require different resizing tool(s).

For that amount of room, it might be easiest to steal from the swap partition.
I'm not 100% sure, but those DOS levels should only require a primary partition - no other special requirements unless your BIOS doesn't have the INT13 extensions (the infamous cylinder 1024 problem).

Here's the df -hT:

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2 ext3 1.7G 1.5G 156M 91% /
/dev/hda1 ext3 48M 8.7M 36M 20% /boot
none tmpfs 22M 0 22M 0% /dev/shm

And an fdisk /dev/hda for good measure....

Disk /dev/hda: 64 heads, 63 sectors 1024 cylinders
Units= cylinders of 4032 * 512 bytes


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 25 50368+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 26 927 1818432 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 928 1024 195552 82 Linux Swap


Am I calculating correctly (1024 - 928) = 96 cylinders
96 * 4032 * 512 = 198180864 bytes... 193536K... 198mb??

I have more swap space than I have free space in '\'?

P.S. Currently free shows I have 45mb of memory 1.5mb free, 195.5mb of swap 184.3 free with X, fluxbox, and 3 rxvt's open..

I launched Gimp, aislriot, and kpat and the free swap dropped to 167.6mb.. and things are slowing a little.

Man, I can't believe some of those numbers - try editting an image and see what happens...

I'd still suggest mangling the swap partition. If you logon straight to X, go back to single user mode - open a terminal, and enter "init 1".
After that "swapoff /dev/hda3" - then you can use fdisk to delete the partition, allocate it smaller, and create the DOS partition.
Use "mkswap /dev/hda3" and "swapon /dev/hda3" to make sure it works o.k., and reboot. Should be good to go.

The only question... If I make my DOS partition /dev/hda4 out of the swap space that will put it way out at the end of the drive... will that be ok for Lilo?

I have been thinking... If I did re-install (ooh hatefull thought) I could not install all of KDE and GNOME and just use fluxbox, Installing just enough of kde for the kde programs I love- kde office, kshiesen, kpat just enogh gnome for gnomegames (wish I could get small stand-alone spreadsheet, I would use amiword, is there a small stand-alone solitair card game. anyway I would still want kshiesen. bleah.

I will try the cut swap in half route first though.

Lilo should find it o.k.

Don't know that I'd halve the swap though - just take what you need.