My computer has an 80gb hd. I have Windows (hanging head in shame) using 20gb, and Linux Red Hat using the remaining 60gb. I want to install Mandrake onto the hard drive as well. During the installation process I am asked about formating the partitions. I don't want to erase RedHat or my files in RedHat. Will this happen?
How can I install Mandrake without erasing my RedHat and saved files such as OpenOffice documents and Mozilla email files?

Can you tell I'm a Newbie??

That's actually two questions rolled into one :)


The question I have:

How is RH's partition layout?
It would be easiest if you had a separate home, swap
and / - partition, ... you could then resize root, and
have a separate partition for Mdk. If you only have a
/ and a swap you'll have to do more work.



Cheers,
Tink

Tink,

I have no idea how RH is laid-out. I'm sure I just did the automatic install with version 9.0. I know so very little about Linus at this point, other than I feel I need to be a programer to figure anything out.

I'm considering saving all the files I want to keep onto a CD and then loading them back onto Mandrake once it's installed. But I'm not sure how I would do that for the Emails I want to save.

Basically the only reason I want to dump RH for Mandrake is because MD 10 Official has the newer Kernal.......right? And with me being so much a Newbie......I don't even want to think about trying to upgrade the kernal myself. I do like the look of MD a bit better than RH also. I am concerned about whether it will recognize my ADSL modem..... MD 9.0 was not able to recognize or configure it.

so many questions..... and all I seem to get from the man's is blurry eyes.

take a look at the output of (as root):

fdisk -l
df -h

Start End
hda1 1 2550 HPFS/NTFS
hda2 2551 9729 Extended
hda5 2551 3251 Linux
hda6 3252 3282 Linux swap
hda7 3283 9729 Linux

Filesystem size used avail Mounted on
/dev/hda7 49G 2.8G 44G /
none 236M 0 236M /dev/shm


and I have no idea what any of that means.

cat /etc/fstab



:}


Cheers,
Tink

I ran the command cat /etc/fstab and this is what I got

LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom udf,iso9600 (blah blah) 0 0
/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /mnt/cdrom1 udf,iso9660 (blah blah) 0 0

So I'm still confused. Do I have what you suggested? a separate swap, home, and / ?
or do I need to do, as you said, more work?

appreciate your help

wow.............that sure doesn't post the same way I wrote it.

I had all the columns lined up just as the data was presented. sorry for the change in layout.

According to your output, hda7 is a linux native partition. What is it's use? I don't see it being used in your /etc/fstab.

Anyways, what you need to do is when you install, don't use wizards. Choose advanced mode and create new partitions, don't modify them. You can keep the same swap for both systems (hda6)

Well.............. I did it. After saving only a few files that I had to have, and figuring I could save my email info from Windows.........I went ahead and installed Mandrake 10. With regard to the partition question, I installed MD 10 on my hda7 and as expected I lost RedHat. I'm curious about some things however..... When I am booting up there are several options for me to select from, Linux, Windows, Failsafe, and two other boot options identified only by numbers ( like 263-7) however, all four options other than Windows, boot to Mandrake 10.

I was thrilled to find that Mandrake 10 was able to identify and configure my ADSL modem ( unlike MD 9.0 )

Two quick questions if you don't mind......... how can I add an additional user to Mandrake so that I can log on to my preferences, and my wife can log on to her preferences?

#2, I have installed Firefox and Thunderbird, they are working properly, but I would like to know how to link the icons for each respectively to open the programs. Placing the icon of the firefox logo and the thunderbird logo onto my desktop. I have the icons there, but I don't know how to make them link to the application.

Thanks

As root type adduser. Linux will then make a directory for the user. If you have made a partition for /home in Redhat. Mandrake should see the users and all your programs like mail and other preferences will not be changed.

Redhat's fstab is a little confusing because they use partition labels instead of the device name (hda, hdb, hdc,...).

KDE: Right click on the icon and select propertise. Click on the Execute tab. There you can type the command to the program.

I do not remember how do it in gnome. It might be the same thing.

ICON question: nope, no luck doing that. I right clicked on the icon I want to use as my link ( the firefox logo ) went to properties....there is no execute tab to select.
I stumbled on someone's post last week when I was browsing here, and she gave the info, but I don't remember where it is.

Perquisitor = one who is searching

well there you go I just was able to do the icon thing. Not exactly sure how I did it.......but I got what I wanted.

Now for all those other tasks into turning my new MD 10 OS into my prefered style.

Thanks for the help everybody...........I'm sure I'll be asking questions again soon