Help me
 

Hi, when I tried to install Fedora on my pc, I got this error message " Defined Root partition not created a / boot/efi partition. I am trying to install it on a seperate hd. My main one has windows xp pro, but I do not want to interfer with that at all?. Any ideas please.

Lucky

How are you partitioning the 2nd hard drive? For a standard workstation install, I usually make a 100m /boot partition, a swap partition thats 2x physical memory, and allocate the rest for /. If you need a /boot/efi partition, make one. Make all primary partitions, and format them all. Let grub install on the MBR of the 1st hard drive.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/e...titioning.html

Hi superstar. I already partitioned the second hard drive into 3 parts. I was hoping to install my very fist Linux on the first part of the drive which is 96 Gig, the second is, 25 and the last is 30 gig. I do not know at the moment how to make a /boot/efi partition. I will however have a go at making them all primary partitions and formatting them. But will the Grub install on my other c drive and interfer with my windows or will I be able to install it on the first partition of the 2nd drive. I do hope I ammaking a bit of sense here.
All the best for now.

Grub will overwrite the existing MBR, which just tells the PC to boot to windows. It will give you a little menu instead, then boot to the OS you say. If anything happens, you can boot with a regular dos/windows boot disk/cd, get a dos prompt, and

FDISK /MBR

which will reset the MBR. IDK if grub needs to be able to see all the drives that are on the menu, I haven't had one single problem with grub ever. (I know the old LILO bootloader would hang if anything wasn't exactly as expected)

Make the /boot/efi partition just like any other - make a little 100m partition and set the mount point to /boot/efi instead of just /boot. Make a big partition for the root / and you should be all set. What are you gonna do with those 25/30 gb partitions? I'd make em all into one big 150gb partition. If it was me:

/dev/sdb1 - 100mb ext3 on /boot/efi
/dev/sdb2 - 16384m (or whatever) swap
/dev/sdb3 - all the rest, ext3 on /

or if you really want to keep a few smallish partitions:

/dev/sdb1 - 100 mb ext3 on /boot/efi
/dev/sdb2 - 16384m (or whatever) swap
/dev/sdb3 - 96 gb ext3 on /
/dev/sdb4 - 25 gb ? on ? - whatever suits your purpose for doing this
/dev/sdb5 - 30 gb ? on ? (IDK if /dev/sdb5 can be primary)

Ok, I need to ask you a simple question Suprstar, how do I set the mount point to boot/ efi. You see I am a big Noob on this in regard to linux terms. In regard to the smaller partitions. If succesful with my fisrt linux instalation, I was going to try out a couple more on those two. Like, fedora, linspire or whatever. The linux looks really cool, if only I could master the type commands etc.

During the installation process, there is a section where you have to set up your partitions and tell it where to install. Don't use a default partition layout, create a custom layout. Then you can create / delete partitions, and set the mount points, and set other options.

Thank you Suprstar. I will let you know how I got on, but dont hold your breadth, lol. It might take some time. Catch you soon.
All the best.

Lucky,

I have never installed Fedora, and don't know why you chose that [I look forward to enraged posts from fervent Fedora fans, not]. I have no idea what an "efi partiton" is and I have been happily running linux (only) for some time now.

Ubuntu 10.04 is top of the list at http://distrowatch.com/ and for good reasons: It is easy to install, and newbies like it, because, mostly everything "just works". I know from your other posts that this will be your first install of linux, so, please, just try make it easy for yourself. Then, once you have the basics sorted out, you can branch out and really have fun.

Even I am running ubuntu [See, at the left, under my username?], because it "just works", and I have better things to do with my time than figure out obscure error messages. [ Like spend waaay too much time on LQ, and sorting out other people's problems, reply to emails, logging in to work ...].
Please get an easy to install distro (I already named it), install it, play with it, tweak it, break it, reinstall it.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Then you can throw away your "training wheels" and get busy with the seriously fun stuff linux can do, because you will have a better understanding of it.

Download ubuntu, burn it to a CD, plug in and turn on all your devices (printer, ethernet, scanner, any "dongles" you have, everything) and let it install.

The reason for doing this is that the install procedure goes looking for attached hardware and will try its best to configure it all at install time. This saves you time later.

Good luck.

[Off-topic: Remember where the kettle is? ;)]

Luckyjfl
you do know that fedora is NOT targeted at the new linux user ( never has and never will be)
it's design philosophy to to push the code until it brakes , fix it( read hack) then push it some more

IF AND I STRESS if you WANT TO LEARN by fixing then fedora is great
-- trial by FIRE --

BUT it is NOT a "just should work" ( for that install Ubuntu or Mint) it needs A LOT of LEARNING on YOUR part

if you are up to the studying / reading ( and rereading )the docs , the forums and are good at problem solving

then start with the fedora install guide on the DOCS web page
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/index.html

+1 for Ubuntu or Mint

Mandriva is supposed to be pretty Noob friendly (however I haven't played with it since it was Mandrake)

You know something Guys, each time I come back to this page I learn even more. I decided today to try Unbuntu as my first Linux. I will let you know how I got on, ok.
All the very best.

Lucky

Hi Guys, just to let you know, I installed Unbuntu today. Went on with little or no problem. It would appear I now can boot to either system.

Thanks again for your help. Haha, no doubt " I will be back " as the man said.

All the best.

Lucky

Congratulations.

First thing you should do is fire up System - Administration - Update Manager - Check - Install Updates.

Then start using and learning. [I broke my first linux install within a few days, and had to reinstall, but by then I was hooked].

Hope you have fun.

as tredegar stated
breaking /fubar'ing a nix install when one is new is NORMAL
i messed up fedora 4 and 5 a few times before i got better at using it ( and that was after using MinGW and CygWin on xp for 2+ years FIRST )

When one is NEW?? Hell, I still do that NOW 20 years after my 1st slackware install! Not on a production system tho thank $DIETY... But still..

I just installed Ubuntu for the first time on a throwaway pc here at work, and *everything* I struggled with in all my other distros worked right out of the box. I'm impressed and amazed, this is definitely the easiest I've seen yet. I'm gonna make this my desktop at home now! I'm suprised I haven't picked up on this yet, I'm really glad I started hanging around this forum, I'm learning a LOT very quickly..

distros have targeted user base
rhel/cent -- the server and office , not the laptop
mint,ubuntu, and like -- the new user coming over from windows

fedora,Arch Slack,Gentoo -- well the not so new user BUT can be if the user WANTS to put in the effort- there is a very BIG learning curve

-- edit --
when i made the switch i was using mingw and cygwin for a long time .Then looked at the switch as a class/ collage course
and did a LOT of reading and studying first. Then settled on fedora 4 ( and 3 months later fedora 5 when it came out)
The support forum is one of the better ones .