Hi I just downloaded Slackware 10.2 and have zero knowledge of linux. I am a WIN98 SE user and am trying to install Slackware as dual boot on my hard disk. I am running a Compaq deskpro PII 400 mHz, 6GB HD, 384MB SDRAM, Rage Pro Turbo video card, unknown generic soundcard.

I have WIN98 installed on a 2GB FAT32 partition. That leaves 4GB open. The 4GB remain unformatted.

I have years of experience with windows and none with linux so I need to be walked through creating partitions of the proper size and format before I even consider installing it.

How many partitions do I need? What will each be used for? How should they be formatted?

I read many forums and have not been able to piece together what I need to know. Thanks for the help.

I think you will find the Slackbookinvaluable during the install. It depends on what you want to use it for. I have /(root), /boot and swap partitions on my laptop. I would say to go for
/boot 100M
swap to be twice your ram, unless you have a lot of ram in which case go for 128M
the rest of the drive will be for /

You may also see a lot of other advice on this

Good luck and welcome to LQ

I have quite a similar setup here. Although my Slackware 10.2 install was the second one I tried. Because you're a desktop user (like most of us I guess), I'd simply put 100-200MB aside for swap (more than enough RAM there anyway) and give the rest to / since you'll never know how you'll be using the space and don't want to end up swapping files around on partitions for nothing.

If the installation freezes while uncompressing the kernel, your BIOS might not be up to the job for booting off the CD-ROM -- in that case you should get the files needed for a bootdisk and rootdisks from the offical Slackware ftp servers, since none are included on CD1 (since 10.2 methinks). Of course you can also get them from CD3 if you downloaded that. You can easily create them in Windows, just follow the guidelines on slackware.org. Without them, I would have been lost on my old PI 200MHz box

Also, another word of warning/advice: you might not be able to get X (or any GUI for that matter) running at all. For me there have been two problems: an ATI Graphics Pro Turbo PCI card (sound familiar?), which Slackware couldn't detect and before that a really ancient, braindead 15" monitor that even Knoppix couldn't handle (after a fit of rage, it now rests in pieces ).

Firstly, thanks guys for the help. I will use this advice.

Secondly, I used Slax (live) and ran it but like you mentioned it did not detect my video card (I got Slackware 10.2 because I thought my video card would be supported with the full distro) so maybe I had better try a different distribution.

Thank you so much for bringing that back to my attention!

BTW, that setup of yours sounds identical to the one in front of me. Ancient 15" generic model. Knoppix works fine on my box and I can run Slax (Live) but at VERY poor resolution. The resolution is so bad that I cant run anything visually because the buttons are off screen and I cant scroll them lol.

So what distribution supports my ATI Rage Pro Turbo?

Slackware will run the card with it's generic drivers. You may then need to install the ATI drivers from the ATI site - also read A Guide: Enabling 3D Acceleration in X11 (i810 series, mostly) by one of our members.