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1) I have also used Knoppix, and it seems to be full of eye candy, but admittedly the desktop is quite user friendly. How is Knoppix compared to Fedora? Which should I choose?
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Those two are Linux. Picking one depends what you like.
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2) As I said I only want to use windows when it is absolutely necessary, so I would like to partition my 40gb Hard Drive with Linux ( fedora?) and Windows Me ( XP Trashes my meagre 128 mb RAM ) .
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Software does not ruin hardware like memory. Windows XP is very eye candy when you first boot into it. It is possible to tone down the eye candy, but you are still left with bad memory management. You have to optimize Windows XP for your system.
Before partitioning, I suggest backing up your data using image tools like Norton Ghost. You will need another hard drive drive to store the image. With Partition Magic, you will have to split the primary partition which is storing Windows. Depending the use of the computer, I suggest making the Windows partition about 8 - 16 GB. This will be only for Windows applications and games. The FAT32 partition or D: drive will be for you to store your graphics, sound, video, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, database, mail, etc. I suggest moving this files from the C: drive to the D:. Then make an extended partition for the rest of the unused space. Next add two logical partition in the extended partition. One logical partition will be formatted as FAT32 and the other will be formatted as nothing. First start to create a logical partition with no filesystem. Then create a logical partition that will be formatted as FAT32. What you should have is shown in the visual below:
|---------- Primary --------------|------------------------------- Extended --------------------------------------|
|---------- C: Drive -------------|--- Unformatted partition ---|--------- D: Drive (FAT32) ----------------|
The unformatted and D: drive partition are logical partitions that are create in the extended partition. Sorry, that I can represent that in the visual. For the unformatted partition, make the size be around 2 to 8 GB. The D: drive can be the rest of the unused space in the extended partition, but it should be larger than the C: drive.
Apply the changes and Partition Magic will do the rest. After Partition Magic did its work, you should see to drives listed in My Computer. It may ask you to format the unforatted partition. Just say no. Make a Windows boot floppy and the reboot the computer. Set the BIOS to boot off the CD disc and also it could not hurt to enable the fail-safe settings. Insert the Linux installation discs. You should see a bunch of greek language going by and then it will bring up a graphical installer.
In disk druid (I think), delete the unformatted partition and add two partitions. One will be a swap partition and the other will be the root partition. For swap you can make it be 256 MB to 1 GB using the swap file system. The root partition will be the rest of the partition. You can pick from ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs, jfs for the root partition but I think disk druid sticks with either ext2 or ext3. If reiserfs is shown in the pick it, It is better than ext2 and ext3. Though ext2 and ext3 can be access in Windows through a program called explore2fs. Again below is visual representation of what your partitions may look like.
|---------- Primary --------------|------------------------------- Extended --------------------------------------|
|---------- C: Drive -------------|- Linux swap -|- Linux ( / ) -|--------- D: Drive (FAT32) ----------------|
Read the on-screen instructions and select the desire packages to install. Use GRUB as your bootloader to make it easier to fix it later if need to.
There is a possiblity that you may never boot into Windows. The Windows boot floppy that I suggested to make earlier will help you boot into Windows after installing Linux. If this happens, you will have to figure out how to edit grub bootloader and change or add a few lines.
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3) There are some very good articles that provide instructions and help to partition the drive and dual boot it but I cant seem to find an Article in which they've used Fedora Core 3 and Windows Millenium. The articles I find always use an older core and Windows XP or 2000.
Is there an article or a person who can help me out?
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oops! I did them for question number 2.
BTW, do not use Partition Magic to format partitions for Linux because in certain situations it can screw up Linux programs.