Hello,

I will be very grateful for any hep/advice given here. I am currently running WinXP and want to install Linux aswell. I will have to partition my hard disk, which I don't know how to do. I want to know how to install Linux, a relevant link or tutorial would be excellent.

Also, how much free space is required on my machine if I want to install Linux?

Thanks for the help

Partition Magic is probably the easiest way to partition your disk.
I've read some distro installers can also partition the drive, but I have no personal experience with them. As far as space goes, if you want to do a full install with KDE/Gnome you'll need at least 2Gig , preferably 4.

what you can do, is download a kanottix iso, from, http://kano.mipooh.net/kanotix/mirrors.html , then, you can burn it, then boot into the cd, and run linux live, but then you can install it to the hd, I don't know how, I never used it, but you can., in the terminal, it will bring up a setup. If you do not like knoppix, perhaps try another easy distribution, like fedora (requires more ram than xp) or mandrake (requires more ram than xp) but they're easy, I use gentoo, but if you're new, gentoo won't be good, a 70 page manual to install, I never tried slackware, everyone likes that, but it's hard.

If I were you start with SuSE, buy it from amazon.com, get version 9.1 pro, for about 6 bucks, it's easy, try the YaST installer, it's one of my favorite.

It can take up as little or as much space as you would like. The less space, the more you need to use the command line, though. A good, multi-purpose install of Redhat or Suse is usually a good idea. Redhat requires you to partion manually with fdisk, but Suse's YaSt comes with an auto-partitioner. I use Suse, but I still like to man. partition the drive. You'll want at least 10 GB space with suse.
I have a 40 gig hd:

20 gig Windows 2000 Pro (only good windows!)
10 gig Suse 9.1 Pro
1 gig Linux Swappartition
9 gig Fat32, for both Windows and Linux to use (mostly Linux) and for easy file transfers

I know some will say Linux can read windows, and it can, but my Win Partition is NTFS and my kernel is shaky when trying to write the NTFS format, so I made a FAT cusion partition.

Stick with Red Hat or Suse, and you have a good shot at successful install. But warning ya, XP and 2000 like to wreak havok with the linux MBR until you lock it out. I suggest GRUB over Lilo, personally.

xpeeuser; also peruse http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/html section
from table of contents 4.1.8 Partitions and file systems. please expand for more detail information u NEED! it will help.

There is this awesome slackware install guide - which I followed and I installed it fine.

I can remember the exact link sorry, but if you search google for "bitbender guide slackware install guide" you'll find it.

sorry if this topic is history, but I'd try the new debian, apt-get is good, a very good operating system, easier than it used to be, autodetects stuff now.

You will need to size down your windows partition, then create linux partitions in the space you freed. Partition Magic is the easiest way to reshape your partitions. Obviously, you need enough free space on your windows partition to do that.

You need to create two partitions. One will be used for the root filesystem, the other one for the swap.

I find Linux eats up disk space very quickly, especially when you start downloading source and compiling stuff. Say 10 gigs is good for a start for the root partition, but this is pretty small.

The swap should be at least 1x your RAM.

Install everything. That's the best way to learn about linux. You'll learn what is the purpose of the stuff that got installed and will eventually be able to decide what you need and what you don't. A full install of Fedora 2 is 4 gb or so. That's huge indeed :-(

A step of the installation process is dedicated to the bootloader installation. You need that thing to boot linux, and it can boot windows as well. Bootloader issues sometimes result in an OS not booting anymore, even if it is still installed on the disk and intact. Before you install, I strongly recommend to create a windows boot disk on which you have fdisk. Test your boot disk. Also, create a bootdisk if your installation program offers it to you.

Good luck!

if u wanna install linux the easy waythe best option is
xandros
install on whichever free partiton u have
swap is managed on its own,u need not specify the swap partition

xandros 2.0 is free download ,1 cd
although limited packages but hassle free and same working environment as windows


regards
gaurav

To put Linux on the same drive as Windows. First use Partition Magic. Spit the partition into two. This will create an extended partition (aka container). Next create one huge logical partition in the extended partition. Do not select any fiesystem for this and do not format it. After Partition Magic made the changes, you should be able to boot into Windows without any problems. It does not hurt to make a boot disk before ever tempting to use Partition Magic. Next pick any LINUX distribution. IMO, Mandrake is much easier than Redhat, Fedora, Suse to install. In any Linux distribution that you pick you may need to run it in expert mode because you will have to delete the logical partition to add two logical partitions in the extended partition. The minimum partitions you need for LINUX is two (/ and swap). Any LINUX distribution that you pick will default to ext3 for the filesystem. In the installer just read the questions carefully and you will get through ok. Mandrake lets you pick other filesystems such as ReiserFS, XFS, JFS which are other common filesystems to use for LINUX. To the end of the installer, make sure you test the resolution you want to go at and the bootloader includes the partition for Windows. Your Windows drive might be on /dev/hda1 (first primary paritition on the primary master IDE channel). You can use either LILO (most common bootloader) or GRUB. GRUB is sometimes fool proof because you do not have to re-run lilo after you made changes to LILO config files.

If you are going to pick Mandrake. Pick Mandrake 9.2 instead of Mandrake 10 because Mandrake 10 introduces kernel version 2.6.x although it has kernel version 2.4.x. The kernel version 2.6.x is very different than kernel verison 2.4.x. Drivers (modules) have some trouble with kernel version 2.6.x because the structure of it is different and the calls for modules are different too. I do not want you complain too much because of the drivers not being compatible with 2.6.x.

While you are downloading LINUX, download Knoppix. Knoppix is great tool for any x86 computer. If Windows fails to boot, you can always get your data with Knoppix.