Want to Install Fedora using Manual Installation method

anishjp · 10-27-2009, 07:14 AM

Hi all,

I want to install Fedora linux in my laptop. These are the specification of my laptop.

RAM - 512MB
C drive - 14 GB
D drive - 23 GB

I installed XP Professional in the C drive. Now i want to install Fedora in the D drive so that it wont clash with the files in C drive. I tried the automatic installation in Fedora but it failed saying the there is no enough space!. Can anyone help me with the mannual installation?. I need to know how many partitions i have to make in the 23GB space.

Thanks,
Anish

maxery · 10-27-2009, 07:47 AM

you should delete the D: drive first

rylan76 · 10-27-2009, 08:04 AM

Hey another South African!

Not sure what you mean about "automatic installation" - I recently installed FC10 and shortly after that FC11, but I can't remember an option called "automatic installation" - what do you mean by that?

Hmm, 23 GB sounds more than enough too, and since you have a physically separate drive (it sounds like you have) you should not need any special preparation or partitioning.

EDIT: Ok, does "automatic installation" mean "automatic partitioning"? I. e. you are asked to create the needed partition structure automatically, or manually?

salasi · 10-27-2009, 08:26 AM

I think the OP has one hard drive, which has, as far as windows is concerned, partitions referred to as C: and D: (and maybe a hidden partition, installed by the PC vendor, with usability/manageabilty functions and a back up of installation software???).

Anyway, if what you know as D: is formatted, which it probably is, the install routines will not see it as free space, even if has no contents. So, you will have to tell the install routine that this space is available and to format space in that partition with your, or your distros, choice of format for this partion.

You do have to be careful to do this to the correct partition, if you have valuable information on what windows sees as C:. Don't do this without a backup of any valuable data.

As to how many partitions, you do not have a lot of space, so you probably want to use the minimum number of partitions that is workable. You can make an argument for this number being anywhere from 1 to 3: just /, up to /, swap, and /home.

With only 500m of ram, it is advisable to have at least some swap space; these days a swap file is reckoned not to have disadvantages over a swap partition and probably has the advantage of being easier to 'fine tune' later, if you decide that you've got the size wrong. I think I'd go for two files of 500M each, with the feeling that I could either add another or remove one depending on how I felt about the size issue after having seen the installation and had at look at how it works later (although I have to admit that I've never actually tried swap files rather than partitions yet....disk space is quite cheap these days).

Increasing your ram would be better, of course, but maybe you don't want to do that.

Berhanie · 10-27-2009, 09:20 AM

Quote:

...these days a swap file is reckoned not to have disadvantages over a swap partition

Very interesting. I found this in support of that claim. Thank you for the information.

anishjp · 10-29-2009, 03:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxery

you should delete the D: drive first

Hi,

Delete the D partion???. Okay,Can u explain ur plan in few steps?. Keep in mind, i need at least 14GB for my XP.

Thanks,
Anish

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-29-2009, 04:00 AM

You can go in Disk management in Xp and from there delete the D: that you see. Once you have deleted it, you should see it as unformatted and unused space.
While installing Fedora, use manual or custom partitioning so that you have the privilege of choosing where you want to put Fedora.

You will lose all the data on the drive while deleting it. So make sure you have backup of it.

anishjp · 10-29-2009, 04:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by salasi

I think the OP has one hard drive, which has, as far as windows is concerned, partitions referred to as C: and D: (and maybe a hidden partition, installed by the PC vendor, with usability/manageabilty functions and a back up of installation software???).

Anyway, if what you know as D: is formatted, which it probably is, the install routines will not see it as free space, even if has no contents. So, you will have to tell the install routine that this space is available and to format space in that partition with your, or your distros, choice of format for this partion.

You do have to be careful to do this to the correct partition, if you have valuable information on what windows sees as C:. Don't do this without a backup of any valuable data.

As to how many partitions, you do not have a lot of space, so you probably want to use the minimum number of partitions that is workable. You can make an argument for this number being anywhere from 1 to 3: just /, up to /, swap, and /home.

With only 500m of ram, it is advisable to have at least some swap space; these days a swap file is reckoned not to have disadvantages over a swap partition and probably has the advantage of being easier to 'fine tune' later, if you decide that you've got the size wrong. I think I'd go for two files of 500M each, with the feeling that I could either add another or remove one depending on how I felt about the size issue after having seen the installation and had at look at how it works later (although I have to admit that I've never actually tried swap files rather than partitions yet....disk space is quite cheap these days).

Increasing your ram would be better, of course, but maybe you don't want to do that.

Hi,

When i bought my laptop, it had only one drive C. I made a D partion to install Vista. Now i have formatted my D drive and want to install Fedora. I know that i have to make some partions like swap, root, usr, home...I want to install some softwares and play around Fedora. I went through the Fedora installation guide and decided to have a Swap partion of 2GB (I want to upgrade my RAM later), 1 GB for usr, 1GB for root and the rest for home (suggestions are welcome...!). Now how to proceed?....

anishjp · 10-29-2009, 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxlover.chaitanya

You can go in Disk management in Xp and from there delete the D: that you see. Once you have deleted it, you should see it as unformatted and unused space.
While installing Fedora, use manual or custom partitioning so that you have the privilege of choosing where you want to put Fedora.

You will lose all the data on the drive while deleting it. So make sure you have backup of it.

Hi,

Thanks for ur post. I will try that & get back to u later...

Regards,
Anish

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-29-2009, 04:17 AM

You really do not have big enough drive for such partitioning. You are better off with just swap and /. 1 gigs for / is really too small and it will fill up in no time. And even if you plan to add ram later, 1 gig of swap is sufficient. 1 gig ram and 1 gig swap is sufficient for desktop applications.
If I were you, I would have only two partitions has you just want to play around. One would be swap with 1 gig and / with remaining space.

anishjp · 10-30-2009, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxlover.chaitanya

You can go in Disk management in Xp and from there delete the D: that you see. Once you have deleted it, you should see it as unformatted and unused space.
While installing Fedora, use manual or custom partitioning so that you have the privilege of choosing where you want to put Fedora.

You will lose all the data on the drive while deleting it. So make sure you have backup of it.

Hi,

I did that and now i have got 22.611GB Unpartitioned space.

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-30-2009, 02:18 AM

Now that you have the unpartitioned space, use the Fedora media to boot from and follow the instructions. For safer and easier going use graphical method of installation.
When it comes to partitioning, use manual or custom option. And then create one partition for swap and /.
First create swap of around 1024 mb and then use the remaining for your /. Select / and proceed to formatting. Make sure you do not delete any partitions and use the free space so that your windows is intact.

anishjp · 10-30-2009, 02:23 AM

Hi,

My unpartitioned space is 22.611GB. I like to partition in the following way...

boot(ext3)=> 100MB.

swap=>2GB.

root(ext4)=>5GB. It also contains a usr(ext4)=>4GB.

var(ext4)=>1GB.

home(ext4)=>14GB.

Suggestions r welcome..

Thanks,
Anish

linuxlover.chaitanya · 10-30-2009, 02:33 AM

I definitely would not do this. You do not have enough space for /. And you do not have space for the partitioning in the first place. Keep only / and swap. And if you do this partitioning you are sure to fill / in no time. It would be mess for you.

anishjp · 10-30-2009, 02:40 AM

Hi,

I downloaded the live cd from redhat fedora. I did a verify for that live cd and a memory test for my laptop. It passed all the tests.

I tried to create partitions as mentioned in the previous post. Have a look at the attachment. I selected the /dev/sda2 and clicked new.
1) Type:swap
2) Mount point:N/A
3) Resize: 2048MB
4) Press ok

It shows the details about the swap partition in the same window(in the attached file, below /dev/sda2).

Then i selected /dev/sda2 and clicked new again
1) Mount point:/boot
2) Type:ext3
3) Resize: 100MB
4) Press ok

and then an error pops up with options
=> Details
=> Save error
=> Exit installer

Again tried creating /boot partion first before swap. Created /boot but again when i try to create swap, the same error pops up. What could be the problem...