Trying to install redhat 9 on a pc already with windows
 

hi guys,

complete newbie to linux here, but not in the world of computers by any shot.

already got a dual boot of windows 98 and windows xp running just fine
ive got two hard drives
drive A has win98 in a primary partiton, then some free space (ready for red hat) then an extended partition with xp and a data store.
drive B is just a data store.

having downloaded and burnt all 6 discs required and read up a lot on the task i thought i was ready so i freed up some space on drive A ready for redhat (5GB)

when i try to do an automatic partitioning in the linux setup and i tell it to leave my partitions alone it returns an error about not having a root drive and this is probabley because of not enough space. 5gb must be enough so im guesisng its not that.

the unpartitioned space isent at the beginning of the drive, is this a problem? shall i move them around?

thanks for reading

andy

What do you mean "Leave my partitions alone"? When i installed RH i chose the option 'Remove all Linux Partirions' and then it created new ones. It won't take away your windows partitions.

5 GB should be enough, the total size for my install was around 2.5 GB plus the 500 MB swap, so total of 3 GB, that would give you a margin of 2 GB which should be fine.

By the way, i'm pretty sure you don't need all 6 CDs. I installed with the first 3, i think the last 3 are all source files.

thanx for the reply!

yeah i was keen to do everything in one go so i burnt them neway! am on an edu site so downloading a cd takes a blink of an eye.

i keep reading problems about GRUB being placed wrong wen doing it the way u suggest.

ive never had ne linux on the machine b4 so i wouldnt have thought removing the linux partitions would be nessecery?!

thanx

Just trying to give some input, im new too. Thats the way i did it even though i didn't have any linux partitions either. Doing it the other way gave me an error everytime so i did it that way.

It also siad something about grub not being done the best way and it could cause it to not work, but it did for me.

RH 9 has had some weird install quirks compared to when i installed RH 8.

BTW, if you have a internal modem, it most likely will not work with any Linux distrobutions. Its probably a "WinModem" and if you want to get it to work, its going to take some time and effort. I just decided to get an external modem to save the trouble. A ModemBlaster External by creative labs is about $60 and will work for most people.

Maybe someone more experienced than i can give you better suggestions.

Nathan

no worries m8, you've been more than helpful

ive got lans at home and uni so no need for modems :)

gona give it a go the way u suggestted tomorrow morning, unless anyone else says something better, already found a how-to on how to solve the possible GRUB problem if it does come up!

cheers

andy