Originally posted by ppcblaster
I have not installed xp pro yet, until I know how. That may help you explain it better to me.
You were kind enought to answer "3. A /boot linux ext2 partition
4. a /swap linux partition
5. a / linux partition which can be any linux fiesystem you like such as reserifs, ext3, ext2, jfs, etc...
" but I don't how to follow those instructions.
Also, the next instruction, i do not understand.................sorry,
"Once you have this figured out, it becomes a little easier.
Install linux to the / partition, note the install should automatically put the kernel and necessary files in the /boot partition and set up the swap partition, but take note of which partitions these are as it may ask you."
A linux install needs at minimum a root partition, but in reality we neet a root partition a boot partition and a swap partition. Some users go further and make tmp partitions and so forth, but we're going to stay simple.
You need to create 3 linux partitions. How you do it depends on the tools you have availalbe. The tools you have available depend on which distro you choose and what you have purchased outside of linux that supports it. I will asume you have no 3rd party tools adn that we have to use what comes with the distro.
The most common tool that comes with an install is called fdisk and is in no way related to the MS fdisk except that it does deal with disk partitions.
I have to make a few assumptions here since I cannot see your systema nd you have not provided a great deal about it.
1. You have 1 IDE harddrive you plan to run win98, winXP, and some linux distro from.
That said I really can't give you direct steps without knowing the ditro you will install, so I will assume slackware, for simplicity.
When you boot to slackware [follow the directions it gives you all the way up to logging in as root with no password] you will have a command line terminal.
type fdisk /dev/hda to run the fdisk program so you can partition the first IDE device you have. This is usually the harddrive. If you have another hard drive it will be /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc, or /dev/hdd depending where it lies on the IDE controller set up.
ok fdisk /dev/hda
this runs fdisk on the first IDE device {device A}. Hopefully this is your harddrive to see type p and review the info given, you should at least see one fat32 or vfat partition if we've done this right.
Now hopefully this partition does not take up the whole harddrive, if it does stop reading now, and post back with as much info as possible on your setup.
Since you should have some unpartitioned space, we need to set up 3 partitions for linux. THe boot partition I mentioned, the kernel goes here and is loaded immediately when you boot linux. A swap partition, this is like a windows swap file, linux needs to use it occasionally. We also need a root partition, this is where all the programs and user account data files will be stored.
Lets start.
n for new partition.
fdisk will ask you to make it a primary partition or logical drive, say logical drive, you will need the primary for XP, and linux has no problem booting from a logical anyway.
so n and l.
It will now ask you for the starting cylinder just press enter and accept the default.
Now it will ask for last cyinder or size. For simplicity use size by using +##M for megabytes.
since this is going to be the swap partition, use +512M to make a 512 MB swap partition.
now hit p, you should see the results of your labors Except it says linux and not linux swap.
TO fix this hit t then type the partiton number for that partition yu just created and enter the value of 82 when it asks for a hex code value for partition type.
type p again and it shoudl be a linux swap partition.
Yah, 1 down 3 to go, the others are easier though
/boot time, /boot partition does not need to be that big, it only holds the kernel and a few config items like message text or boot image. so for this lets be simple and say 32M.
n
l
[enter]
+32M
done.
next is root.
here is the problem.
I have no idea how much more space you want to allocate to linux. And I can't really tell you what you need becasue I have no idea what linux you are installing and what packages. So I'll leave it up to you.
n
l
[enter]
+??M - allocate as mny megs as you can to the linux root partition.
done.
now w otherwise none of this will be saved. you must 'w' write the layout to the disk.
then you are done use q to qui fdisk.
partitions are make, but you are not quite done yet.
you now have to figure out what fieystems you want.
/boot has to be ext2, swap has to be swap, but the root partition [/] can be whatever you want.
If you want to do some research on file systems and determine the ultimate one for you to use, go ahead.
If you want things to be simple nand just get started with linux, then keep ext2 and move along.
anyway most distro's will now run thier setup program in which you will choose which partitions are what
and what file system they have. Make sure you select the smal one as boot with ext2 file system and the 512MB one as swap with linux swap. Decide what you want to do with root but remember it has to be supported by the kernel which is why ext2 is the easiest.
During the install you will install boot loader, configure it and be ready to go for booting between currently installed OS's.
Now a word to the wise about XP, if you are going to use it, go ahead and install it before linux. Becasue it automatically installs its own bootloader, which will overwrite what you told linux to install no matter what and give you a panic attack until you reinstal the boot loader you chose.
You will need to know which drives, usualy /dev/hda and which partitions usually /dev/hda1 and /dev/hda2
the windows OS's reside on."
I think this is...device is hard drive a,... /dev/hda2 is the next partition? What type of partition do I create?primary?
Plus I don't know where to enter these commands...sorry again...
Think the directions above got that for you, but yes, the letter represents which physical drive you are using [hda, the first {A} ide devise] and the number represents teh partition on that drive /dev/hda2 is the second partition on the first IDE device.
Next :
" You will need to ad entries to lilo.cong or grub.conf and tell it what the os's are and where they are and how to load them. someone here should be able to help you if you tell them which bootloader you are using and give them the layout from an linux fdisk p command.
Once the boot loader is correctly setup, things should go smoothly.
However in order to see the windows partitions you need to add entries under linux to the /etc/fstab file. How you add the entries to this will determine how the drivers are seen.
for NTFS use read only [ro] as the NTFS driver can not really write to NTFS parttitions, it sort of blows stuff up. I have no idea how to edit anything...BUT I'am willing & trying to lean..
furthermore you will need to set up who can se the drivers, can all users see them? gid=100 or just root or what?
Now I'am really lost.
Sorry. For the boot loader to boot multiple OS's you'll need to set up its config file correctly. In order to do that you need to know what partition(s) the os is installed to.
My lilo.conf looks like this.
# Windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/hda1
label = Windows
table = /dev/hda
# Windows bootable partition config ends
# Linux bootable partition config begins
image = /boot/vmlinuz
root = /dev/hda8
label = Linux
read-only
You can see windows boots from the /hda1 partition and linux from the /boot partition and my root partition is on /dev/hda8.
read-only refers to lilo's restrictions here not the OS's.
"Then :Partition magic might be able to help you, but shrinking a NTFS partition is dangerous AFAIK thus far. If you have a defragger that will consolidate files to the front of the partition its easy, but windows defragger does NOT do this, so..."
I think I understand this, since I have tried so many time to partition the drive.
What defrag program do you recommend?
There are no real good defragger's IMO. If you only have win98, the win98 defrag does consolidate files to the front of a FAT partition if you configure it to do so. Only XP seems to have gotten screwed on this feature, even my 2K box at works consolidates the fiels with its defragger. I am sure some of the commerical XP defraggers will consolidate the files on teh NTFS partitions if you want to, but.
What is "AFAIK" ?
As Far As I Know
I need baby step instruction. but once I understand it I'll have it.
Unfortunately I'm not real good at teaching. Hopefully I laymanned it out a little better this time.
What would be really great would be a pinned answer in this forum, that would take someone a lot of work to create that would have the steps along with the screen capture of a suse install.
by pinned you could look at www.xbox-scene.com forums. under each topic are "pinned answers that get ask so often they create the complete answer and keep it in the forum.
I hope you can help.....Thank You again............
This is not possible becasue there are appxoximately n raised to the x many distrubutins of linux and each one is a little differnt. For intance mandrake has a program called diskdrake it runs for partitioning the drives, its much better [supports resizing partitions] and more friendly than fdisk is, but to my knowledge, mandrake is the only distro that uses it. And I do not think you can uese fdisk in the mandrake install either so you have to use diskdrake. Your first task is to pick a distro, your choices are limitless, your restrictions are resources, and personal taste. After that, its limitless.
