Resizing primary partition to make room for a linux distro
 

Here's the deal I have this box with WinXP on the 1st primary partition (it's NTFS). And I want to resize it so I can free up some space for Ubuntu. However I'm afraid of doing so with PQMagic while the OS is running. The problem is I have no diskette drive so I can't use the boot version of PQmagic. How do I split the partition? What do I use?

glad you are trying to experiment with linux, believe me it will be a wonderful learning experience.

well to help answer your question here is some information that I found that might help you.
the dual boot is something that is a typical option for many people who are first trying out linux (this is a good option).

http://www.crhc.uiuc.edu/~mjmille2/h...x-and-windows/

I hope this info is of some help, if you have any other questions let me know

1. Get a floppy drive (less than $20)
2. Backup your data
3. You can resize using partition magic while running---nothing will actually happen until re-boot
Also, see #1
4. Install Linux--it will offer you choices as to how to partition the free space you have freed up
During the install, you might want to consider making a boot floppy (with or without also putting the bootloader on the hd


Alternative: consider adding another hd for Linux---they're really cheap.

yeah, pixellany has a good point, most of the time with modern linux distribution installation software whenever you run the installation it may ask you if you want to create a partition once it detects a pre installed operating system on your computer, sometimes they even give you a default partion setup which makes it even easier for you to do a dual boot. Just to be safe it is also a good idea to get another hard drive to install it and use that as your secondary drive that way you dont have to worry about a dual boot.

good luck,

thanks both of you for the help. I have another question: how big should my swap file be? Keep in mind that my RAM is 1GB... I read and heard some people say 2x my RAM, some say the same size as my RAM, and yet I read others say swap files should not exceed 500MB.
So what is the real deal exactly?

2X RAM rule of thumb IMHO is outdated. It really depends on what applications you plan to run and what your going to use the PC for. If your just going to use linux as a typical workstation then with 1GB of memory your probably never going to use swap.
A high volume email or webserver on the other will need more swap. 512MB is a good size to start of with.