I am having trouble, when installing Suse 10.3, on a new Dell Inspiron 1525, which came "preloaded" with Windows Vista.

The problem arises, because Linux can't touch the partitions...
It happens that the system came configured with 2 NTFS Primary partitions, and even if i shrink one of them (by 52,5 GB), Linux can't use them!

I tried to establish a primary partition for Linux, using the Disk Manager, without success. It does not permit more than an extended partition, which Suse 10,3 didn't seem to like...

Could somebody please throw some light on this for me?

(I had previous experiences with Linux and Windows machines, but only on the older Windows... 98, NT, 2000 and XP, where I never found troubles... until now with Vista).

Thanks in advance for your support!

Maybe you're facing some SuSE limitation? However, if you have tools
available, the possibilities are limitless.

First, your Vista has two primary partitions, eh? One is formatted NTFS
and is /dev/sda1, and the other formatted NTFS is /dev/sda2. On my shiny
new Lenovo T61, I first used "cfdisk /dev/sda" and deleted /dev/sda2. Then
I made a new /dev/sda2 of the size I wanted, and gave it 0C for FAT32 LBA;
or give it type 07 for NTFS if you prefer. Linux can now read/write NTFS.
NB: My /dev/sda2 (D: in Vista) was empty. Check yours first.

Now you have two primary partitions left to use for SuSE. If it requires
a primary partition to install onto, then make /dev/sda3 your / partition,
and then swap and /home and whatever else, logical partitions.

Or, you could make /dev/sda3 swap, and /dev/sda4 sill primary but an LVM.
That way you could put your other partitions in the LVM.

Did the same thing (on a Lenovo) with 10.3 and had no problems, so I don't know why you are struggling.

The only things that come to mind as possibilities (and I'm clutching at straws a bit here) are:

• You could be getting confused by hidden partitions. Usually the big manufacturers have a hidden partition for manageability functions and this could be confusing you into trying to work with the wrong partition, maybe one that is too small for what you are trying to do?
• Are you working at the end of the partition table? That is, are you making room in the high numbered blocks so that you don't have to deal with renumbering existing parttitions but just allocating a designation for the new partition?

What exact error do you get?

The extended is a container partitions and can contain a number of logicals, so you shouldn't need more than one extended for this. (I've never tried with the extended as anything other than the last partition, and that might be against the rules.)

I haven't had any problem spreading a SuSE install over a number of primary and logical partitions, so I don't think the problem is that SuSE doesn't like extended partitions, per se.

The Opensuse 10.3 install CD has an option RESCUE SYSTEM, so when you first put the CD in the drive, select that option. You will go to a Rescue login prompt, type 'root' here and hit enter. At the new prompt type 'fdisk -l' without quotes, lower case letter L not a one. This will show your partition info. Post it here if you don't understand. After you create an extended partition, you will have to create a logical paratition on which to install Opensuse.

The second partition 10 GB, has about 4,5 GB of data, intended for system recovery.
One curious fact, is that it cannot be expanded. Only reduced... (?)

I fear that if i delete it, it may cause problems on the actual windows instalation.
Besides Partitions already mentioned, there is also anorther small partition, which contains just a few MB, which I havn't touched, because I believe it may be also dangeours. So in total 3 are marked as primary.

Question: May I delete D (Recovery) partition without harming the actual Windows Vista Instalation?

I hope someone else will answer, but I don't think you should
delete any of the Windows partitions in your case. If SuSE will
only install to primary partitions, my option of creating a primary
partition and using LVM to install the system should work.

Since I've never used SuSE, and perhaps it is designed not to
use a logical partition, I'd advise you to wait for someone
who knows SuSE to confirm or deny this logic.

I'm really not clear on why the Suse installer can't deal with this. Once you shrink the ntfs partition that should leave free space that Suse's partitioner can use.

One suggestion would be to download and burn the first disk of the Slackware installer, boot that, and use cfdisk to set up your partitions on the free space and then run the Suse installer to see what happens. I only suggest the Slack disk because I am most familiar with it and know it should do the job for you.