I am trying to install FC2 on an old Compaq Armada 7730MT laptop.

Anaconda finds everthing correctly, even a 3COM base-10 pcmcia ethernet card.

I have a 3 Gig HD so I'm just doing a PC type install, not full install so it's only wanting to use 2.2 or so gig for the install. Also, there is a compaq diagnostics vfat partition at the start of the HD that is only 14 or so meg with the bios settings and diagnostics stuff on it. The rest of the HD is unallocated.

Now... here is the problem... During the installation I let Disk Druid automatically partition and format the drive. The conclusion of that was this...

hda1 boot partition about 100 megs
hda2 / partition about 2700 megs
hda3 vfat partition 14 megs
hda4 extented partition 192 meg
hda5 linuxswap 192 meg

I don't have the exact numbers but, I checked out the cylinders of the hard drive and 1-19 were hda3; 20-400 or so was hda1; 401-50000 was hda2 and the rest was for hda4 and hda5.

When the installation actually starts to copy over the kernal and files the system comes back and says...

not enough space and hard drive
"/" then 27Megs


My next step is to just disable the boot loader (since I am only installing one OS, FC2 anyway)

what does anyone think of this since my hda1 boot partition is about 100megs and the hda2 partition is 2700Megs or so and FC 2 is seemingly trying to install to the little 14 meg diag partition at the first of the drive but that partition os labeled hda3???

I am newbie linux user but have installed FC, FC 2 on some other machines and still learning every day...

many thanks to everyone...

i've got an armada as well, 7800...

anyways, "Personal Desktop" is probably too big for a 2700 MB partition. you can
1) do a custom install and install less or
2) keep "Personal Desktop" and custom partition your hdd

so

1) just click "Custom" and select the things you want. it's pretty straightforward in FC2. or if you want...
2) this is a little more adventurous, but usually necessary on many distros (slackware) so you might as well learn it now. you probably don't need a /boot partition, so just forget that. here is the scheme you should probably stick with (i'm purposely not giving you the hda #'s because i don't know what they'll be):

vfat compaq bios settings partition: 14MB
swap: about 2x RAM (~256 MB is a guess, but if you want, you can do smaller to get the entire "PC" install to fit)
/ (a.k.a. root): the remainder (~2700-2800MB)

select the mount point for each partition, and for type, select "ext3" for / and "swap" (or whatever it does automatically) for swap.

YOU NEED A BOOTLOADER, unless of course you plan to boot from disk every time. this takes up little space anyways.

my recommendation is do both 1 and 2, you'll learn more. you'll find "Personal Desktop" or whatever it's called has a lot of stuff you won't need.

Thanks for the info and help...

I found out some more info on the laptop... it's only 133Mhz with 96Meg RAM....

After reading some more (much more) info about laptops and linux in gerneral I decided to try a small, differ distro...

I went with Libranet just to try it out. I am very happy with the install of Libranet 2.8.1 so far. I have tried to set up the eth0 but to no avail so far... but hopes are high !!! No pain no gain... I'm after the learning aspect that LINUX has to offer anyway!!!


Thanks again for the info.