Hi,

Newbie question here:
I have a laptop with winxp installed and its partitioned as C:\ and D:\. Upon starting my laptop, it prompt me to choose if I want to boot winxp or other options.

I'd like to install Linux on this laptop with a few conditions in my mind:

1)I want to shrink my D: drive so I can frees up some space for linux but I don't have tool like partition magic, I hope there's a linux distro would take care of it for me.

2)If I decided to remove linux off my box, I'd like to expand my D drive back to whatever it was, again...I hope there's a linux distro would take care of that for me.

3)(finally, this is most important) I don't want people to tell I have linux installed on my laptop by having LILO or whatever bootloader shows upon starting the machine. I also want to keep my existing MBR as is (since I have additional options I don't want to mess with).

Would anyone please suggest a distro which allows me run the installation (at a easy mannar) so I can partition my drive, and allow me to load linux without bootloader by maybe using a floopy or some other mean?

Thank you.

For the resizing of the partitions, I recommend Gparted, which can be downloaded as a standalone ISO which you can burn to CD, or download Ubuntu LiveCD, which also has Gparted in it.
NOTE: resizing NTFS partitions is not always 100% successful; there is a small chance of error, but using Gparted tends to be the safest and easiest way. Also, it is not recomended to move the START of any partition. It can work, but isnt recomended.

You can run any live CD without even installing it, or, install it if you like to the hard drive.

You can install Linux without a bootloader, technically, but you need *some* way to boot it. In your case, I suggest making a boot-floppy. You would have the bootloader installed to a floppy, and when inserted, it would boot your Linux when you turn the machine on, and leaving no sign of Linux on the machine the rest of the time.
Most/many distros offer the option of choosing where to install the bootloader, or not to install one at all. Off the top of my head, I can't say 'exactly' which ones will NOT give you a choice, but one which does is Slackware 11. Depending on your needs and experience, you may not want to install Slackware, as it is not commonly referred to as a 'beginner' distro. That said, maybe you have some experience ( I can't tell based on this post, your post count, and your indicated distros, which includes Slack 9.1) but if you have *some* linux experience, Slackware 11 is a great multi-purpose distro. If Ubuntu gives the choice of bootloader installation, that would probably be a decent choice too, but again, it all depends on what you want to do, and your comfort level.

Finally, were you to decide to remove Linux eventually, simply use Gparted again from a liveCD, and delete/resize the partition back to how it was.

Thanks for the tips grapfruitgirl. Yea, from what I recall, most linux distro would only ask if I want to install GRUB/LILO or not. And that's why I wasn't sure if I can get an option of putting it in my floppy during installation. My major objective is to install and hide linux in that laptop. Therefore I think Gparted will comes handy when I'm ready to remove linux from the box.

you mentioned resizing NTFS partitions is not always 100% successful; there is a small chance of error. What are some of the potential problems I might have to deal with, assuming if things go wrong? (so that i can mentally prepare...)

thank you.

Well.. chances are, if you only move the END of the NTFS partition, to shrink it's size, you won't have any problems.
Definitely, I would defragment the NTFS partition first, from Windows, especially if it is large or full or valuable or in the condition that an average NTFS partition is in -- messy!
Gparted is a VERY reliable, very good tool for the job. I personally think it is the best tool; though that's my opinion, it is shared by others too.
It's merely the nature of an NTFS filesystem which opens the possibility of data corruption, when adjusting the partition. With ANY partition operation, there's a chance of something going wrong, the chance is just slightly larger with NTFS.
For all intents, Gparted is the safest way to do it, if you're going to do it at all.

Oh, and -- as for the exact way they ask if you want to install LILO/GRUB, many distros will ask if you want to make a backup boot-floppy, rather than precisely asking to "..install LILO/GRUB to a floppy..".
Most distros will also allow you to boot an installation using the install CD. For example, you can boot Slackware on a hard drive, using the Slackware CD's boot: prompt, by specifying the kernel, the root partition, etc.. So even if the installation does not explicitly let you make a boot floppy during the install, simply boot the new installation using the install CD, and then run LILO from a command-line once it's all booted up, and install LILO yourself to a floppy.
Same thing; just a different means to the same end: LILO/GRUB on a floppy..

hi GrapefruiTgirl,

Thanks for the tips. I downloaded and burned a ubuntu feisty fawn live cd but i ran into a minor problem, hope u can share some insight with me.

Currently, this is the setting I have with my laptop:
drive C:\ 20GB NTFS
drive D:\ 69.1GB FAT32
hidden drive:\ 4GB FAT32

I'd like to shrink drive D and put ubuntu in it's empty parition.

I did the following:
1) boot laptop from cdrom
2) choose install ubuntu
3) answer the standard question (keyboard layout, UTC clock, username, password)
4) partitioned my drive (20GB drive D, 49GB ext3)
5) at the summary screen (before software actually write into my disk) i clicked "advance"
6) i see "hd0" as a pre defined value in the boot loader text box.
obviously hd0 is my MBR, and I don't want to install boot loader...

I got stuck there and I dare not to move forward by erasing the boot loader value off the text box. Because I wasn't sure how else I can install a bootloader into a usb stick or floopy (or continue boot from live cd)

You seem to know ubuntu pretty well, do you happen remember the installation process?

Once again, thank you for your time

Ubuntu is a Debian based system. For debian based systems 'hd0' is the first hard disk and not MBR of the first hard disk. For Red Hat based systems the 'hd0' would read 'hda'.
You can use anyone of these conventions i.e. 'hd0' or 'hda' on debian systems though.
For specifying the partition number you will have to specify (hd0,1) where 'hd0' is the first disk and '1' is the partition number. Or you can specify hda1 also in the same field for the partition.
Please check the partition number with 'fdisk' before you do any changes to the disk. Different Linux systems show different partition numbers for the same hard disk.

Potentially you may be left with an operating system that doesn't boot up at all. I once corrupted both a Slackware install and a Windows XP install in this way, both became unbootable. Luckily I was able to recover the data. I was doing something rather stupid at the time, so it's unlikely it will happen to you.

With grub you can set it to automatically boot windows as usual after a slight pause (I usually set this to 3 seconds), but if you hit the 'ESC' key it brings up the grub menu and you have a choice of any of the OSes listed then.

Very, very sneaky.

The above posters likely know Ubuntu better than I do; I don't have it installed personally, I just use it live, so the advice given above is probably better than I could give, especially when it comes to GRUB bootloader.
Also, the MBR doesn't actually appear as one of the hd's, you only see the partitions listed.

To reliably resize/move XP partition use the latest gparted or Parted Magic Live CD, downloadable from their sites. The unreliability is to do with the earlier versions mainly. Also it is a good practice to defrag XP before it is resized.

(hd0) in Grub term means the 1st disk in the Bios booting queue but if a boot loader is to be installed there the whole of the disk (hd0) is also the MBR.

To install Linux and keep XP's MBR untouched like a virgin there is a link in my signature describing 3 available methods.

I think in your case I propose another method and that is using XP's NTLDR to boot Ubuntu. The steps are as follow

(1) Install Ubuntu in the partitions of your choice but make absolutely sure the boot loader Grub is in the "root" partition of the Linux.

(2) Follow Task E4 in the last link of my signature.

--------------------------
Explanation

The choices for the destination of a boot loader can be a maximum of 4 as

(a) No installed
(b) MBR
(c) root partition of the Linux
(d) a floppy

Not all the choices are offered by (b) and (c) are standard.

In every partition, with exception of a few odd ones, the first sector is always reserved as the boot sector to be used by the boot loader. Putting the boot loader in the root partition means to its logical residence. The boot sector is not part of the filing system and formatting the partition will not remove its content.

NTLDR is XP's own boot loader. It can be used to boot up to 10 systems. Since XP does not support Linux it can't come out to load a Linux because it wouldn't know where to find it even if it could read a Linux Ext2/3 or Reiserfs partition. Thus the way to do it is you copy the first sector of the root partition of the Linux, place it inside the "C" drive, unhide NTLRD's boot.ini, add an entry to the booting list, hide the boot.ini again. It is a lot of extra work but the idea is you hand the first sector of the Linux boot loader on a plate to XP. When XP boots a Linux it only loads its first sector. It is the first sector of Linux boot loader that pulls up the Linux.

Not much to it really.

@ Saikee -- thank you for that explanation, especially the part about the bootsectors being installed to the ROOT of the linux partitions. Until now, dual/multi-booting Linux this way has not quite sunk in for me, and I had been going through an annoying and more complicated process to boot other partitions from my MBR's bootloader. I will be reading your signature soon;
Nice

GrapefruiTgirl,

Booting in Linux is simpler and easier than most users give credit for.

Definitely, I agree with you.

A different and simple way for the above task is to install grub into any partition other than 'mbr' and 'windows' partition. Then just make the windows partition active using fdisk and that's it. Your computer will show you neither the grub nor Linux and boot into windows directly.

When you want to use Linux you will have to make the partition with the boot loader active or use Linux bootable CD/Floppy to boot Linux.

Windows 'fdisk' won't show Linux partition. You will have to use a Linux bootable CD to use 'fdisk' to make Linux partition active.