Help!!! Installing Mandrake 9.2.1
 

Hello,

i just received my cds ordered from linuxcd.org

now i need your help , i have been messing my self aroudn the setup and cant understand

I have a 40 GB harddisk
with 4 partition on it , each of 10 GB
named C: ( windows is in c ) , d: , e: , f:

i went to setup manrake and there are was an option to customize the partion during setup , use an existing windows partition , erase disk , choose the one we want to use

i first went in the customize one and then riszed the f: partition to make it less and got a free space of 500 mb and then put 200 of that 500 mb in swap and 300 in ext6 ( i dont remember if it s ext6 or ext3 )

then i made d: 1.5 gb less and created a fat32 of 1.5 GB to install inux on

i am happy and then go on the next screen to choose packages and the space it allows at the bottom is only 260 mb :( , i cant put anything in there

so i restart and then choose to use an exisiting win partition and then choose the 1.5 gb one from there which is called g: and then when i click next it asks me how much space to keep for windows while windows isnt there , the minimum i can keep is 500 mb which then make only 1000 mb remain which wont be enough of linux then

when i choose the one i want it only shows the ext6 partition and i dont want to use any ext6 partition to install linux on because in windows it doesnt show the swap and ext6 so how will i transfer some files from there to fat32 if i need to and also ext6 i created was of only 300 mb

i have no idea now what to do

any one can help?

Thanks

The thing is ou will never see the ext3 and swap partitions from windows and will not be able to port an files form ext3 to ntfs. The thing ou want to do is to install Linux on ext3. You can't install on fat (I think). The couple of things you have to watch out for is:

- mount points (mount the ext3 or try fat on /)
- swap file
- /boot partition
- you can make fat partition that will be shared between linux and windows

I don't know if installing linux on fat is possible. I would just recommend you to install on ext3 because it is safer. Some other gurus will tell you if it is possible to install on fat. I haven't done it yet.

Hope this helps you even a little bit.

ok i see i cant do that

by the way my windows has fat partition , will i be able to save some of my files of linux in my windows partition while working in linux , suppose i m using the office of linux and want to save the document in a fat32 of my harddisk?


Can you tell me how much space to give to boot , swap ?

and i am giving 1.5 GB to Linux installation and when it start setting up it only shows around 1230 mb and from the packages i choose it takes around 1200 mb , so is this ok or i need to give more than 1.5 GB?

Thanks

and also why to create a boot partition ?

i want to use win xp and linux both , i mean a dual boot system , is it because of that ?

and will mandrake automatically setup dual boot

and in future suppose i have to format and reinstall windows then it would stop asking for which os to start on botting the pc because windows will erase the record , then how will i make dual boot available agian?

Thanks

The thing is. You need swap of at least the amount of RAM you have. (I think that if you have lots of RAM you don't need swap). boot takes about 5MB but give it 50 or 100 to be safe. And yes you will be able to read and write to the fat partition under windows and linux. This type of file sharing is commonly used in dual boot with windows and linux. You will also be able to see and use files on NTFS. But you won't be able to write ti NTFS from Linux for security reasons. The amount of space you give for linux depends on which packages you plan to install. As a difference from windows, where you need to leave a couple of 100 megs free for virtual memory, here you have swap for that. You could install 1500 of 1500 MB of space if you wanted and it would still work.

You need the dual boot partition for GRUB or LILO (i prefer GRUB). Dual boot. Later when you reinstall windows (if it overwrites GRUB) you will have to start mandrake with boot CD and reinstall GRUB (it only takes a second).

And if you ever need any help just visit LQ and search the forums or post a question. It will be answered shortly.

hi

i did install mandrake and to the end to see that kde isnt working it gives some fatal error when i type kde in command prompt now what to do?

and i forgot to ask that what type should boot be made? i made it fat32 ? is it because of this that kde isnt working?

can you tell me what do to do now ? make boot fat32, ext6 or what ?

i will then try to install agian it too so much time to only see that kde wont be working :(

one more thing

the fatal error shows that :

Fatal server error:
No screens found

i searched for this problem and found one of this post :
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...de+fatal+error

i dont understand how to do what that person suggested because this is my first time using linux

any idea?

one more thing i just checked again and before the fatal error above it , it give these three errors:

no core pointer
unable to determine screen layout
error from xf86handleconfigfiles

any one there?


i reinstalled mandrake by deleteing its partition and creating a new partition again and this time i got no error in the setup :D but then when it rebooted this time the command prompt of the GRUB came :confused: , what to do from there?

last time grub asked me which os to load , this time during setup it didnt ask me if i want lilo or grub and automatically chose lilo as i could see from the summary but now whenever the pc turns on it takes me to the command prompt of GRUB

can anyone guide me ??


if you say install GRUB from the Mandrake boot cd , tell me how to do this please without install whole of mandrake again

thanks

anyone ? :(

ok was able to fix my mbr and remove that grub command prompt by using fixmbr in win xp recovery mode

and i now also learnt how to go in mandrake rescue mode :D

but now the thing is that it just take me directly to windows now although i ran the resuce of mandrake and installed bootloader

any idea of what to do now?

Just a couple of quick comments

1) Linux file systems are generally ext.2 or 3 unless swap files

2) make a boot floppy during or after linux install which will allow you to boot back into linux where you can reconfigure your booting options - Mandrake Control Centre in Mdk
- if necessary.
3)With xp on a multiboot system I reckon it is safer to use the ntloader in the mbr and have that point to your root partition where your linux boot loader lilo or grub - I use lilo graphical - is installed
Info on how to do this is available - try a search !


Thames

Well, ou haven't installed it right. The bootloader I mean. With grub you would do the next:

grub
setup (hd0,1)

this would install grub on the main partition. I don't know about other boot loaders, but they should work the same way. If you don't see it in the booting of the computer, it is not in the MBR and you should get it there. How? I don't know. Search around some more. There is the solution and the sweet feeling when you solve something.