Need an advice for: Multiple Disks&Multiple Penguins and a XP :)
 

Hi, this is my first post and i'll try to be very specific :)

What am i curious of: May i install more than a distro on my computer? (i already have mdk 9.2)
I have XP and MDK 9.2 set, and i want to install a secondary (and obviously third for sure :)) linux distro,
but my disks are mixely partitioned :)

Disks and partitions:
Disk1: 80GB 4 partitions
Disk2: 30GB 4 partitions
Layout:

DISK1 (hda):
##############################################
# hda1 # hda5 # hda6 # hda7 #
#/mnt/win_c #/mnt/win_d #/mnt/win_e #/mnt/win_f #
#FAT16 #NTFS #FAT32 #FAT32 #
#no os #XP Pro #no OS #no OS #
#7.5GB #20GB #19GB #26GB #
#**GB free #4GB free #2GB free #40MB free #
##############################################
C: D: E: F:

DISK2 (hdb):

################################################
# hdb1 # hdb5 # hdb6 # hdb7 #
#/mnt/windows # / #swap #/home #
#FAT32 #EXT3 #Linux Swap #EXT3 #
#no OS #MDK 9.2 # :) swaaap #sweet home #
#20GB #4.5GB #500MB #2.8GB #
#8 GB free #** GB free #** MB free #** GB free #
################################################
G:


hda6 (/mnt/win_e) is my game partition
hda7 (/mnt/win_f) is my clips(not porn :))/mp3 partition

##########################################################################
I may repartition 2 partitions :)

1) hda1 (/mnt/win_c) was my win98 drive.I deleted win 98 manually and edited c:\boot.ini
2) hdb1 (/mnt/windows) is my documents/yes porn :)/projects partition

#########################################################################
What i don't want to do:

1) Completely delete a parition , this will lead to drive letters problem in windows
(yes from computer managent i may re-assign drive letters but i want to be sure
this won't cause a problem, i don't trust windoze :))

##########################################################################
What makes me confused:

Secondary (third,....) distro will have / and /home, can it cause a problem?

##########################################################################
What i want to do but not sure:

1)Resizing hda6 (/mnt/win_e) so that C: will have max 30-40 MB so there will be no drive letter
problem but how will i repartition?
Diskdrake seems ok. But will ~7GB space be sufficent (I know that would bu sufficient
and many of you would like to kick my ass for this question - but my slogan: "moooore space")?
And do you expect a problem ?
(i want to hear experts advices)

2)Resizing hdb1 (/mnt/windows) I may have 10 GB free space (yes goodbye to porns :))
10 GB will be sufficent for sure :) Again do you expect or forsee a problem?

###########################################################################
What distros i would like to install:

Fedora 1.0 and Gelecek Linux (a turkish distro - 2 CDs)
(both dont need much space i know)

###########################################################################
May i use only one huge /home partition for all Linux distros?
Or one huge /usr partition?
For example i like quake3, and installed in /usr..... but i dont want 3 quake3s :)

##########################################################################

I think this is all for now :)
Thanx for reading.
Also what are your advises for me? (multiple distros, or disk structure)
Where may i find a HOW-TO for installing multiple distros?

(forum seems to ruin my tables about my disks, i think code eats spaces :)

Re: Need an advice for: Multiple Disks&Multiple Penguins and a XP :)
 

It may lead to letters problem. The best method is to delete the partition that has last letter used.

Quote:

########################################################################## What makes me confused: Secondary (third,....) distro will have / and /home, can it cause a problem?

No. /home or / is relative to the distro, not global. For example: I have 3 distros (sharing /home): Slack's / is /mnt/slack for other distros and so on.

Quote:

########################################################################## What i want to do but not sure: 1)Resizing hda6 (/mnt/win_e) so that C: will have max 30-40 MB so there will be no drive letter problem but how will i repartition? Diskdrake seems ok. But will ~7GB space be sufficent (I know that would bu sufficient and many of you would like to kick my ass for this question - but my slogan: "moooore space")? And do you expect a problem ? (i want to hear experts advices)

It's fat16, so diskdrake will do it. 7GB is OK. Especially when you don't need to keep all the files on it (bigger things to /mnt/mandrake or somewhere :) )

Quote:

2)Resizing hdb1 (/mnt/windows) I may have 10 GB free space (yes goodbye to porns :)) 10 GB will be sufficent for sure :) Again do you expect or forsee a problem?

hdb1: FAT32. Resize should also be fine. But I can't say for sure - it's partitioning. Power loss during the process and there may be problems.

Quote:

########################################################################### May i use only one huge /home partition for all Linux distros? Or one huge /usr partition? For example i like quake3, and installed in /usr..... but i dont want 3 quake3s :)

Yes, you can have one big /home. Just remember to install distros using similar program versions (so config files fit to all of them).
/usr can be shared, but I don't think it's a good idea. It's used by most programs coming with distros. Shared /usr will create mess. Just create /share or /extra or... and keep all your shared stuff (games, Mozilla, OOo) here.