Installing a 3rd OS - FC4 in addition to XP and SUSE 9.3
 

So the hardrives are currently like this:

Primary Master - 76.33GB
Windows Partition - 64.6GB (NTFS) - Free 50.04GB
SUSE Partition - 10.72GB (Ext2)
SWAP - 1.0GB (?)

Primary Slave - DVD-RW

Secondary Master - 8.03GB
Windows/Linux Partition - 8.03GB (FAT32)

Secondary Slave - 76.33GB
Windows Partition - 76.33GB (NTFS)

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I want to install FC4 on the Primary Master by converting part of the 50.04 free (approx 10.GB) to a ext2 partition. Currently the SUSE /home directory is on the SUSE partition.

I want to move that to the secondary master before I install FC4 so that the 2 Linux OSes share the same /home directory. Is that a good idea and can I just move the directory to the secondary master or will I have to create a ext2 partition on the secondary master.

Will the native FC4 installation process allow me to create a partition on the existing NTFS for ext2 and not destroy stuff. Of course a back up will be done before I attempt all this.

Any things I might have forgotten?

Fedora / Redhat doesn't have ntfs support at install time. You can install it later which is IMHO a pain.
I think the easiest thing to do is leave Suse alone where it is and use qtparted on a livecd or install it onto Suse. Use qtparted to resize the ntfs partition on the second hard drive.
Install FC4 to that free space on the second drive.

If you created an Extended partition in the free space, then you could create several logical partitions and then install several Linux distros. I don't share home directories so I can't say if it works ok or not. Just never felt a need to try it.

Norton PartionMagic
 

Hi
I did considerable repartitioning of existing FAT32 and NTFS and EX3 partitions before I installed Fedora Core 4, with Updates now so 4.1, running now as well several kernels but namely 2.6.12.1398. To accomplish this task of repartitioning I followed the advise of several books on the capability of 'Norton PartitionMagic' to perform this task. It is a meager expense of about $40.00 that could I think satisfactory accomplish the task. But I have to say that the same sources also listed 'parted', or whatever is the name for the program in Linux the repartitions. So you might try that first. The one thing I can pretty much assure you from my experence with Norton that, with two backups--one on CDs or DVDs and the other on the second harddrive--and PartitionMagic you will be able to carve out any partition sizes you want SAFELY. Again that is my experence. I took about a week setting up my machine for a LINUX install and used PartitionMagic often. Worthy of note; however, is that once you have an NTFS file system Norton PartitionMagic cannot convert it into a FAT32 partition. So that stragedy in this case is to resize a partition into two partitions where one is NTSF and the other is intially unformated. Once you get the unformated partition you can then format it to FAT32. That is what I had to do. . .

As to even mounting NTSF partitions, I am unsuccessful. I have followed several autors in the steps they take to mount a NTFS partition but the best I can accomplish is getting the 'service'--I am not certain what it is called--for NTSF to run in the background in Linux. Yet it neither mounts the NTFS partition manually or automically. Therefore I am still working on it. You problably should expect to work with it for some time too. On the other hand, mounting FAT32 partitions is simple. For that reason I think it inportant to have you Document folder under Windows XP save to the shared XP-Linux partition. That way you can exchange them back in forth as needed where one operating system has an advantage that the other does not. I also place all my downloads on this XP-Linux partition as well for again the aforementioned reasons.

So maybe give Norton PartitionMagic some thought. I did and found it very easy to use in taking on tasks like you are suggesting.

What leaves me curious is about the number of Linux distrobutions you can have on a local machine. I guess I have an overkill situation because Fedora Core 4 is divided into 6 partions--/; /tmp; /boot; /home; /usr; /var and /swap. I was advised to partition as such because I would be able to contain coruptions and errors the spew output until the partition is full. For each partition I give a generous amount of space. The sum effect is that though I wanted to learn Debain and Fedora, I have only room for Fedora currently. I wonder what would be the minamum size for a Debian installation with a full software and applications installed?

In any case, take care. Keep me in touch as to if 'parted' works for you if you go that route.

Tim

TDW

PS What does IMHO stands for anyone?

:Pengy:

thanks guys

imho = in my humble opinion

homey are you saying that i will not be able to install FC4 on the 1st harddrive?

if i create a new partition, can I copy any SUSE files on my home directory to that partition and mount it as /home/<username>. Will I be able to share the files there with FC4 or will I need to create a seperate /home/<username> for FC4?

Nope, I'm not saying that! I did say....
"I think the easiest thing to do is leave Suse alone..."
If you want to resize the Windows Partition on the Primary Master, you would then have plenty of space to install Fedora / Redhat.
However, inserting another partition before Suse will confuse the /etc/fstab root and swap settings. Also, you will likely have to change the boot loader settings. That is no big deal for me but you may find it a learning curve.

Parted lists the partitions as follows:

Clearly any new partitions will be ahead of the SUSE and Swap partition. What will I need to ensure that SUSE can find its path and that of the swap directory?

I am thinking of creating the new partition(s) suing YaST - One for FC4 (10.72GB), possibly another swap for FC4 if the partition cannot be shared by the Linux distros (1.0GB) and a home directory to be shared by the 2 distros (if possible).

How would this affect the current SUSE partition? It is currently /dev/hda3. I am guessing it would move by the number of new partitions I add.

Would I need to manually change the /etc/fstab and /etc/grub.conf after adding the partitions (if I use YaST)? Or should YaST automatically updated the info?

Can I just copy the stuff in the SUSE /home/<username> to the new home partition?

*thup*