Anybody know of any good disk partitioners? I'm planning to install slackware. Right now I just have 1 big windows xp HD, need to break it into 2 parts. Newb-friendly partitioners are prefered.

How about fdisk or cfdisk. When you install Slack it'll boot to a command line where you can run cfdisk to make your partitions. Then after that you'll want to run setup.

partition magic if you do not want to destroy data, but you have to pay for it. I'm not sure if there's a trial version and if it would let you do what you wanted. I tried to use mandrake's partitioner since it can resize NTFS partitions but that didn't work out too well.

I got partition magic after and endless battle with my internet connection. After all that work, and after setting up everything perfectly, it said "sorry, that is only avaliable with the full version". Bah! Surely there must be a free disk partitioner out there somewhere? Keep in mind I don't want to wipe my HD.

I used cfdisk from the command line when installing slack 10. I am a noob and the program is pretty self explanatory as long as you know what you are doing. I would read up on partitioning if you are unsure.
Know what size you want your :

-root partition ( the amount of space you are allocating to slack.) ( space to install slack to plus room for the stuff you want. apps ,.mp3, .jpg .avi etc.)
-swap (I have been told many times to make swap 2x as big as the amount of ram. (ie. if you have 256 do swap 512mb.) I think this is debateable.
-home (if you are putting /usr/local on seperate partition.)
-ntfs partition. (WIN)

are you going to use ext2-3or rienserf(sp?)?
what boot loader you using lilo or grub?
are you doing a full install of slack?
Are you sure all your hardware is compatible with linux?
I am just trying to give you the things to think about that snuck up on me during my first couple of Linux installs.

I haven't done a dual boot with win and slack.

I would suggest backing up everything you value off win.

my .02
What's the worst thing that can happen. You mess up and waste your win partition and make a mess of your hard drive. I messed my amd comp with a fedora core install on a xp box. But I learned a lot from it.

Good Luck
Blair
;

I don't know what it means but I think I'm going to use an ex2.

I have never used lilo or grub, so no idea.

I'm doing a full install of slackware10.0.

I have no idea if my hardware is compatable with linux and have no idea how to check.

Do I have to put a seprate partition for home? Home is like the default user, but doesn't have as much power as root, right?

Will having a bigger swap partition increase my speed?

Thank you for your response.

Do you mean a filesystem (ex2)? If you do, i would reconsider and go with ext3 or reiserfs. I use reiserfs myself. ext2 is not journalized where ext3 and reiserfs are. And you don't need a /home partition. Actually, Linux requires only 2 partitions; a root and a swap. The others /usr /home /var... are optional, though it's a good idea to use some of the others to avoid complications down the road.

I highly recommend BootIT NG. It's an excellent utility and can easily handle resizing your monolithic partition into pieces, without blowing away your Windows installation.

Alternatively, if you don't mind reinstalling Windows, then I'd suggest using cfdisk, doing the partitioning, then reinstalling Windows, then installing Slack. Just be sure to back up your important data before doing anything. -- J.W.

So what type (ex2,ex3,reiserfs) do you recommend for the swap partition?

I'm using bootitNG right now, it's creating a boot diskette.

I don't care about XP, and don't have anything important on there. But I don't have the boot disks anymore, so don't want to do anything that will totally keep me off the computer.

Update:
I'm very intimidated by bootit. EMBR, MBR? I was paralyzed. Very scary. That kinda made we want to go ahead and buy partitionmagic and justify the 10$ as insurance against my ignorance.

The swap partition will get it's own filesystem. It doesnt't use ext2,ext3 or reiserfs. When you make your swap partition the number you want to use for it in cfidsk is 82; it will make a swap partition for you. Note: your swap should be about 1.5 times the amount of RAM you have.

There is qtparted from http://www.sysresccd.org/. I recommend backing up your data just in case disk utilities screw up.