I need a guide on how to set up my partitions and boot loaders so I can run Slackware 10.1 with XP Pro. Can anyone provide me with some? Thanks!

Also, do I need to create a swap partition with cfdisk?

I am sort of a noob at this stuff so go easy on me please

Hi! Welcome to LQ!

So, you're trying to dual-boot Slack with XP Pro. Ok...

First of all, how much RAM do you have? If you have somewhere in the midst of 512MB-1GB+, then I usually don't put a swap, although I do for smaller ones. Some people go on 'swap size = half of RAM size', but I go on a swap=RAM basis. It's up to you, ultimately, whether you want/need a swap space or not, and how big it should be.

As for the partitions, I could help you with that myself if you would like. Yet, if you would prefer a proper tutorial, there are hundreds waiting to be found by you on Google. A simple "dual-booting slackware and windows" will turn up more results than you need!

From your post, it looks like you've only had a little bit of experience with Linux...are you sure you want to try Slackware so soon? I agree that it makes for a steeper learning curve, but sometimes you might get stumped badly and get fed up with it - just a small point!

As for the partitions - I'm guessing XP currently takes up all you HD space at the moment? I use Partition Magic to resize my partitions (it has never failed me), although there are tons of freeware ones for Linux too (which are also very good). Resize it to half its size, and then create ONE Linux partition, with mount point set to "/", and file system "ext3" (or another if you want). Yuo may want to have a separate /home partition, but again, that's up to you.

HIH,

J_K9

edit: Check this page out for resizing partitions: Resize FAT32 and NTFS. There's also anotehr method in my Public Bookmarks...

Hey, thanks for the reply. I am sort of new to Linux...and going to slackware (a little more difficult distro) is what I thrive on I teach myself almost everything I know, and I have windows/hardware down to the bone.

My Windows partition only take up some space, I 34gb of free space waiting for a Linux installation.

My PC Specs:
1 GB PC 3200 RAM
256 MB 6800 GT
Athlon 3000+ 64-Bit
DFI Lan Part mobo
60gb HDD

I will mess some more with it, and if I have more troubles I will report back.

Thanks for the reply

www.slackbook.org

Read it, love it, never leave it.

If you have a 64bit processor, i guess you know that slackware doesn't come in a 64bit flavor right? And if your not to familiar with linux, i suggest triple booting with slackware, windows, and an easier distro ( fedora maybe ). You have enough free disk space to do this. It is how i learned linux, when i got fed-up with the complexity of slackware, i went to my easier distro, went on-line to figure out things such as setting up X or upgrading the kernel and such. this way i never had to touch windows unless absolutely necessary.

the easiest way to triple boot is this:
install windows first (you already did this )
install Slackware (when it asks you were to put the boot loader, choose the standard option )
install the easy distro ( if you install fedora, mandrake/mandriva, or similar, it will ask you if you want to boot your other OSs )

thats what my setup was for awhile then i went on to booting 5 OSs at the same time. I enjoy skrewing around with stuff like that.