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Old 03-11-2005, 02:58 AM   #1
artificialGekko
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Masterbootrecord and changing distributions


Hi!

I've had Suse 9.2 on my notebook for a while now, planning to change to Slack...
Now, what should I do with the old linux before installing the new one? Is there anything I need to do to the masterbootrecord while partitioning or formating my harddisk? And if yes, how do I do it?

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 
Old 03-11-2005, 03:07 AM   #2
Bruce Hill
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Have you backed up your data from SuSE?

Are there any presonalized settings or configs
that you'd like to carry over?

Which bootloader does SuSE use? LiLO or GrUB?

Are you familiar with and do you like that bootloader?
 
Old 03-11-2005, 03:13 AM   #3
artificialGekko
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I have a backup of my /home, no settings or configs I'd know of

I'm pretty much a newbie to the whole linux, so for now I'm still a bit of searching for the right distribution. I had some problems installing a couple of programs on SuSE and when I found all of them to be kinda preinstalled in Slackware I decided to give it a try.

I'm using Grub, never seen Lilo so far, never had problems with Grub, too - not done all too much with it neither so far.
 
Old 03-11-2005, 03:40 AM   #4
Bruce Hill
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If you don't know of any settings/configs then you've probably
not customized anything yet, so don't be concerned.

I'm not sure if LiLO will overwrite GrUB or not. When I moved
from Debian to Slackware I had it on a separate drive and/or
partition and formatted before installing. That's probably not
necessary. When you install Slackware you can change your
partitions and then during setup you can either format your
partitions, or skip the formatting.

How is your current system laid out?
# fdisk -l (lower case L)
$ df -h
$ /sbin/lspci

I'd save the output of those commands so that when you're
installing Slackware, and then later setting it up, you'll have
them for reference.

I believe that if you choose to put LiLO in the MBR, it will
write over GrUB, but I'm not sure. You might want to search
LQ and also Google <Linux> to find out.

On the Slackware CD1 there is a file titled Slackware-HOWTO
and it will give you some good installation instructions. If you
need to, print it out. I would make one change from those
and that is to use cfdisk rather than fdisk to change any of
your existing partitions.
 
Old 03-11-2005, 03:43 AM   #5
reddazz
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Slack uses LILO by default, all you have to do is make sure its installed to the MBR so that GRUB from Suse is overwritten.
 
Old 03-11-2005, 04:03 AM   #6
artificialGekko
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Basically I have only one partition so far, my notebook only has 15 gb of diskspace so i didn't bother much about partitioning it before.

/dev/hda1 | start: 1 | end: 96 | blocks: 771088+ | Id: 82 | System: Linux Swap / Solaris
/dev/hda2 | start: 97 | end: 1836 | blocks: 13976550 | Id: 83 | System. Linux

@Chinaman:

I know that "#" means entering a command as root, but what does the "$" mean?

I testinstalled Slackware on some other desktop PC before, but that one had Windows XP on it and I just formatted the partitions I created there.

Just another little question to cfdisk:

On what kind of partition am I supposed to put the swap-drive? On that other computer I made a Linux Partition for "/", then when partitioning the leftover space on the hdd it offered to make another "main", "logical" or "something else" drive (sorry for the "something else", I installed it in german and I don't know what the third option there translates to...).

Thanks for all your quick help, very awesome!
 
Old 03-11-2005, 04:27 AM   #7
Bruce Hill
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You should have at the very least a / and a /home
and a swap.

# means root and $ means normal user -- always
run your system logged in as a normal user, and
only su to root for administration

swap goes on swap partition -- type 82

and cfdisk asks you for primary, logical or extended
and if you use 4 or less partitions make them all
primary -- extended is for when you use more than
4, only 3 can be primary and the rest logical within
an extended partition, which cfdisk will automatically
create when you select the 4th as logical
 
Old 03-11-2005, 04:52 AM   #8
artificialGekko
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I guess having a /home-partition of it's own saves me a lot of backup-work when installing the os anew

I'm still used to the whole "primary partition for c: and extended partiton with logical drives for the rest of the harddisk" as it is common in win - but good to know that I can partition multiple primary drives for linux.
I think I have everything I need to try it now, thanks!
 
Old 03-11-2005, 08:33 AM   #9
Bruce Hill
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Having a separate /home partition is good for backups.

And fwiw you can make primary and logical partitions
on Windoze, also. Here's an example of the partitions
on the 2 drives in one of my comps
Code:
mingdao@james:~$ su -c "/sbin/fdisk -l"
Password: 

Disk /dev/hda: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1        1212     9735358+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2            1213        2424     9735390    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3            2425        7349    39560062+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda4            7350        7476     1020127+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            7350        7476     1020096   82  Linux swap

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1          12       96358+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2              13          85      586372+  83  Linux
/dev/sda3              86         450     2931862+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4             451        9729    74533567+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5             451        8839    67384611   83  Linux
/dev/sda6            8840        8961      979933+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7            8962        9083      979933+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8            9084        9729     5188963+  83  Linux
 
  


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