Ok Azmeen Im with you I think, so If I use say partition magic, and make it say drive D,and give it say 10gigs, would that be sufficent and would it work,, ? I will search forum on partiontioning for Linux..

Thanks Azmeen

Ok Azmeen, if you can please review my intentions before I continue.
On my laptop, you are correct about partitions I have the following:
Disk 1- unallocated size 7.8 megs used mb (none) unused mb(none) Status (none) Primary
Disk1 type84 size 47.1mb used 47.1 status (hidden) primary
Disk1-C NTFS SIZE 28.560.9 used 6.152 mb unused 22.408.2 active Primary

Here is my Idea, I am using Partition Magic it gives me the following to use to partion drive:
partition magic choices:
FAT
NTFS
LINUX EX2
LINUX SWAP
EXTENDED
UNFORMATTED

Should I use Linux EX2 to partion Unallocated disk 1 with 300 megs or NTFS.it also suggest but does not tell me how to create 2 partions 1 for Linux partition and 1 for a swap partition

Im thinking format using Linux Ex2 assiging ea a drive letter and giving Linux partion 3-500 megs and swap partion 250 megs

Please tell me if on right track,,
Also I have Powerquest Partion Magic if you think it’s a good proggy,and if anyone needs it I can put it in my online storage.

Thanks again
FP

Just resize the winxp NTFS partition to make some unallocated space, and make sure you resize the right hand side(end of the disk).There is no need to create partition/format with partition magic, the Suse installer will do this for you.

Also IMO give it at least 8 gigs or so, because you won't be able to write to the NTFS partition therefore you'll probably need to store some personal files.

Lastly please backup your important files somewhere safe before resizing, not trying to put you off but I've seen partiton magic fail (though rare).

As Demonbane says, just leave it unallocated in PQMAGIC.

You'll create the Linux partitions in your SuSE setup. Of course you can create it qith PQMAGIC, but that'll leave out the one of the important experience of installing Linux

Demon,Azmeen, Thank You very Much,I apprecite the replys and I listen as well,I TELL you being a newbie it sure does get confusing reading ALL the options you have,it great to have people like you.
Thanks Again
FP
im going to install today,and I will post my results.

Keep us update OK FP... Good luck!

Yahooooooooo, Azmeen,Demonbane,THANK YOU
I loaded suase9 pro,and im now online with it. It is a whole new world, Installation, was pretty simple, it partitioned my hard drive, no problem,.found my hardware, while installing it went over all of its features, after installed it checked & installed updates ( very nice ) I cannot belive im on Linux,, Now im looking for a firewall for suse linux. then tomorrow I will start learning Bash, commands,, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SUPPORT !
the desktop is unreal,wowe I feel like a kid with a new toy !!

Thanks again Azmeen, Demon, very much !
Fp

Good for you! I hope you'll enjoy your new toy

I heard that SuSE is very user-friendly and that Linus Torvalds (the original creator of the Linux kernel) uses it himself... you should be in good hands

Most of the Desktop Linux distros (which includes SuSE) should have some GUI frontend to iptables (the firewall app in Linux). Try to look it up in your documentation (you should have it since you bought the box set)

And again... welcome to the wonderful world of Linux

P/S: Don't forget to update your profile... specifically the Distro section

Azmeen, thanks Again I did find info in suse, using yast control panel, and did my firewall, I hope.lol
Also posted a review on Suse and gave thjnx to you & demon,,

Thanks Again.

Hey FP,

Great going! Well you had an easy ride so far. I am newbie myself. Never seen or touched a GNU/Linux machine or for that matter any Unix variant before. I am not even a technie, just a regular banker doing Product Development ( not software just financial prodcuts ).

Well here I am writing this post running a newbie customized version of Suse 9 on my Compaq Presario 2540EA. I certainly did NOT have an easy ride. OK I'll be honest I do not have the patience to read man pages or even info pages. Just eager to get it going, hands on kinda guy.

In the past month I have probably installed Suse 9, Lindows and even a GNU/Hurd based system 10-15 times. Why? to get a working installation of a GNU/Linux installation on my laptop with ALL my hardware and Window Managers working without a hitch. Of yeah almost forgot, all these installations that I did were on this same Laptop.

Here's just a brief summary of what I have done so far. Sure some of these are just plain newbie bonker ideas. But either way, here's the list :
- Well I got sick of going where I was going to be led that day or for that matter any day by MS so I was considering getting a Mac.
- But as fate had it, I went to a store to buy a Washing Machine and came back with this laptop. Why Compaq, well I got it kinda cheap and its kinda upper mid spec. 2.6, 40 gigs, DVD/CDRW, modem. Very usable for almost anyone. As is common for most LT's it came preinstalled with XP home.
- Sure loved the machine, got back on the net after almost a 3 year hibernation ( got married, got a kid ). Did a lot in my first weekend. Well that a long story but I tried out MSN 6, MSN 8, Yahoo, emusic, bonzi, irc and a whole lot more. Well actually bonzi is what got me this broke..lol. All of this in a three day extended weekend.
- Thats when I felt I had plateau'd (did i just coin a new term here? ) out on MS systems. Thats the only system I have seen or used ever since I started using PC's. started with 3.1 and ended with XP. To plagiarize a quote from someone here or somewhere else. Windows Free in 2003! It kinda rhymes well. Almost poetic.
- Ok my first trial RH 8.x . Problems faced, free on firewire, usb and harware probe. did try it with linux nofirewire, nousb and noprobe. I did see a few more screens from the GUI install process, but that was about it.
- Next move, got SuSE 9. First install with standard options went almost smooth. Pros - firewire, usb and hardware probe went well. Have'nt tried firewire, but the rest worked. Cons - modem dead, VESA drivers, with nothing more than 800 x 600 or there abouts. Well me being confident this beast could do more, I puched up the resolution to 1024 x 768 with all the colors 16.x million. The test worked. Rebooted just to be sure again, and the real fun got started. No GUI. Well I have seen the MS blue screen a lot, but what was I supposed to do on a SuSE 9 blue screen. Well actually it wasn't just a blue screen. I could log in and do a lot probably, but didnt know any commands not even ls. Tried dir, help help --help and then info, tinkered with emacs..lol RMS thank ya man. I still havent learned to do any thing constructive on it yet, but I sure hope to.
- FP , you are lucky coz you had your gui and you could connect to the net and get help from Azmeen (very educative ?- educate me too
- I didnt have my screen and the net. Dingbats!! No Azmeen , not even Demonbabe to help
- Anyway to cut a long story short - here's what I can do on my LT now
1. GUI works. No 3D. Thats on my tudo list. Found a short cut to getting a lot more resolutio without applying any fixes or patches. Choose Compaq - MV700 as your monitor. Might not work on any other LT or even on a Presario but it works for me. No 3D though.
2. Upgraded to Gnome 2.4
3. Tried Garnome - had my machine running the make install for garnome for 36 hours straight on my lap top connected via my dial-up with an average speed of under 4K. Bandwidth here sucks. Well havent booted into Garnome yet, but I do have all the downloads. It still wont work though. libiconv what are you doing??
4. Instead went in for manual Gnome 2.4 install from a few ftp sites.
5. Gnome boots well, but it aint perfect yet. work in progress for me.
6. The maximum I have stretched this machine - 4 GUI sessions running Gnome 2.4 on 2, KDE and Window Maker on the other 2, with Gnumeric, abi word, ximian, kmail, yast2, gedit, gkrellm, svg Tiger background, nautilus, konqueror, kppp, calculator, epiphany and a few terminal sessions running aafire, info, and one other one running ./configure in /pythog 2.3 folder. Oh yeah I had Screen savers running on all of them too. I have all my most valuable downloads on a raid drive on the same 40 gb hard drive. I know its not right to have it on the same physical drive, but thats all i have.
7 - work in progress - gDesklets, XFree with 3 D accel. Mine is an IGP 340 card. I know I can get it done. Fix garnome, get rhythmbox working with esound enabled. Theoretically possible? Dunno. gDesklets being just a frigging pain though. PyGtk, gnome-python, old kernel. Got 2.4.21, first 2 runs failed. a few more and I will finally have my icons zooming a la Mac. I need that...lol. I did manage it on KDE with KDM but I want it on Gnome with GDM. Looks much better that way! Want a dual boot with BSD and GNU/Linux.


Note to FP.... yeah you Frozen Pingus!
I aint a techie, I dont program, havent used anything other than MS products. Havent even meddled in Basic to this day. Yesterday at 2 am I was checking out Python 2.3 in emacs. Pretty cool! Feature summary says it can Help with memory management. I wanna see if it can help me not with hardware or software memory management, but my own 32 year old, abused brain cells to get my icons to zoom as much as I want. I did format my drive using Yast from Suse 9 CD 1. No partition magic required, just wanted to get rid of everything on my drive and start fresh. No regrets !!

To this day, this is my first post on any message boards. I have not posted a single request for help here or anywhere else. (except one to SuSE for my frigging hsf modem). But by the time I got a reply, I had fixed it with a linuxant driver. They do have an updated driver on ftp.suse.com in a personal folder. I would like to believe it is in a personal folder coz I made a personal request. Will try it out soon.

Gar, Gar
Stop Thinking, Start Configuring!

cheers to all! keep up the good work - Azmeen and all

Congrats to both of you... vinjacob and FP.

Should any of you have any other queries, feel free to post them on these fine boards...

Don't forget to mention LQ the next time you plug Linux to your friends

vinJacob, very good post except I don't know half the stuff your talking about, but im sure I will have problems bugs etc.what I do know I mod at a site,and that pushed me into joining this great forum,because what I have learned is, there are people that have these sought of problems and its easier to post problems, and getting answers rather then kicking yourself in the head. I look forward in our venture together in Linux and hope to see your posts rather then going crazy. I just wish I got into this when I was a kid,,,,,,,LONG time ago..
Good Luck to you & ty for very informative post.
FP