Dual Boot Setup
 

Hello, how are you all?

I was hoping that someone could answer a simple question as to whether the partition setup I am planning, which I am going to use to boot Redhat Linux 7.3 and Windows XP on the same hard drive(80 GB), will work. I have XP already installed and I plan to shrink the partition so that I have room for Linux. The setup I am going for is as follows:

1st Part. = 32 MG Dell Utility Partition (Came with system)
2nd Part. = 50 MG Linux /boot Partition
3rd part. = About 35 GB Windows XP Partition
4th Extended Part. =

{

1st = Linux /root About 35 GB
2nd = Linux swap About 1 GB
... maybe other partitions like /home or whatever?

}

I was then planning to install (GRUB or LILO?) directly to the MBR and hope that it will detect and load both OS's. I was just wondering if this setup would work or will it trash my system? Are there any other things i have to consider? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You
David Turner

well with XP already installed, its most likely taking most of the space at the beginning of the drive, so Linux should be installed mainly on the last portion of the drive, unless you plan on reinstalling XP to partition.
also, lilo is what i prefer as more users are familiar with it and its easy to setup and understand. but you shouldn't have or run into many problems. linux and XP can exist alongside one another with no problems.
also, yeah, i would recommend at least a /var, /tmp and /home partitions as well along with your / and swap. if you using this as a desktop machine.. no need really to have a swap of a gig... i never go over 125 megs for swap and its rarely touched. if you have over 256 megs of RAM, you can easily get away with at least 200 megs or less for RAM.

Thanks
 

Thanks a lot

Well then I guess I will go ahead and try it. What sizes do you think I should make the Linux Partitions. I was thinking about a 4GB root partition, but how large should /home, /var, or /tmp be? It would be simple to just have the root and swap partitions but I have read that it is sort of like placing all your eggs in one basket, if /root goes, it all goes. Do you know what would be the appropriate sizes for these extra partitions? Thanks

well how much space were you going to use in total for Linux ?

maybe say if you were going to use 10 gig for it, something like this would work fine:

swap = 125 MB
/boot = 32 MB
/ = 1 gig
/usr = 3 gig
/home = 4 gig
/var = 1 gig
/tmp = rest of space

I was planning on using around 38 GB for the linux install. Should I just apply those proportions to to that space? Thanks Again for your help.

actually you can keep the / partition the same as it won't change much in size if you have a separate /usr and /home where most files/programs will probably be stored.
you could also increase the /var and /tmp but they don't need too much more space though.

my setup on a 40 gig drive that I use for a ftp/nfs server:

/boot = 32 MB
swap = 125 MB
/ = 2 GB
/usr = 5 GB
/root = 1 GB
/var = 1 GB
/tmp = 1 GB
/home = 20 GB
/data = around 9 GB

Alright, I think I am ready!
 

Thanks a lot man, you have been a great help. I think I am going to go ahead and try for the install. I will definitely come back here again if I can't find the information I need.

David Turner

Greetings, this is my first try one this forum.
I have two drives,C wae main drive, and D was used as backup.

I installed SuSe Linux 8.0 on C, /dve/hda1/ windows me /12 gb. Linux has the rest of 25 Gb.

I can't get back to win ME from Linux. What is wrong?

Bob Berger

This is a bad place to post this.
 

You'd have a lot better luck posting a new thread instead of at the tail end of one that's been solved. You will have a much better chance of a solution if you also post either /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf depending on which you're using and the contents of /etc/fstab.

There are dozens of possible combinations and you've given very little detail of how it's actually set up.

You have to help us help you ;)