Installing Linux on a Windows partition..
 

I just bought the Linux 10.0 learning edition and am trying to dual boot Linux on a 40GB partition I made in Windows. I'm a little concerned doing this by myself since this is my first experience with Linux.

Right now I need some help Selecting a Mounting Point. The options I was given by the install in this section included: Erase Entire Disk, Use the Free Space on the Windows Partition, and Custom Disk Partitioning. Obviously, I don't want to erase the disk, and the second option seemed particularly vague to me, so I chose Custom Disk Parititioning and am now faced with an interface my manual doesn't detail.

In this Custom Disk Paritition interface I see the two partitions in blue (which I guess means they're Windows partitions) and am given three actions: Mount Point, Resize, and Delete. I've chosen the Windows D: drive, the one I want Linux on, and chose Delete. This grayed it out and gave me an option to Create. I assume I've done this correctly to this point?

Here's where I get confused. I see a scroll bar called Size in MB, a select box dropdown called File System Type, and a text/select box called Mount Point. What am I supposed to input here? Do I choose /boot or some other Mount Point option? What File Type is it supposed to be? And how many MB am I supposed to allocate for my Linux paritition? I've read some old documentation saying anything over 8.5 GB causes problems.. but then that was for RedHat 7.0, which I'm not using.

Anyways, thanks for your help!

first of all, linux 10.0 doesnt exist. u may be missing a word or something like mandrake or slackware or something like that. and for the mount point, all u want is / . the slash means ur root partition, or like in windows its the C:\. /boot is like the WINDOWS folder under c:. for file type you want ext3 or ext2 (i think its red coloered). for MB, u want to use as many as u can, but leave around 512 MB for a swap partition (i think its green colored). you want to use all the disk space u can so u dont have any leftover.

and u can have as large of a partition as u want. mine is 15 gb and i have no problems.

Right, this is Mandrakelinux 10.0.. my bad.

So, I'll leave the Mount Point as / then, and crank the scroll bar as far as it will allow me on the partition Size in MB. But what do I choose for the File System Type, and how do I go about creating this "swap partition" you mentioned? Can I do that in this Custom Parition section?

Thanks!

theantic; http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX section4.1. subsection 4.1.8 scroll thru that for more info. it will help also.

Cool. I'm reading this HOWTO thing you posted, and there's lots of files types listed in it that I'm not presented with on the install. All I'm seeing in the drop down box are:

• Linux Native
• Linux Swap
• Journalised FS: ext3
• Journalised FS: ReiserFS
• Journalised FS: JFS
• Journalised FS: XFS
• DOS FAT16
• FAT 32

I assume the FAT stuff I don't want, but what's the difference between Linux Native and these Journalised options? Is choosing a File Type completely arbitrary depending on how I want my system to perform? Or do I have to match a certain File Type in order to successfully dual boot my machine?

Thanks!

theantic ; same way u & i found this site others abound with help and answers. scroll scroll research research work work only way! sorry also newbie thats how am able to try help.

Linux Native is the ext2 filesystem, NOT Journalized!

Ok.. I opted for the ReiserFS file system, created a Linux Swap partition (about 520 MB), and allocated the rest of the 35 GB of my partition to my / Mount Point. Everything installed wonderfully!

Then I tried running it.. APIC error: 04(04) over and over again!

My machine is a dual processor machine, and I know people have reported this problem with it, but I can't seem to find out how to fix it. Does anyone know here how you deal with this APIC error? I'm a newb at this too, so you'll have to be specific.

Thanks!