My PC is currently running Window XP Pro.
I wish to install a linux (SuSE9.0 or whatever), on which
I will do some numerical computing (not quite intensive)
and plot out results. But I'm not gonna immigrate all my
work to linux immediately. So I will dual boot.

In this 80G HDD, 10G could be available for linux. The
CPU is P4-2.66Gand RAM is 512M. Dell Dimension 2400 desktop.

My questions are:

1. Do I have to install linux in the same extended
partition (active) that now XP is dwelling in (of course
in the different logical patitions)? I heard there can be
only one active primary partition, from which OS can boot up.

2. for linux, how much size (10G totally) should I assign
for the partition of
/boot ?
/ ?
/home ?
swap ?
Does /usr or /tmp etc need a separate partition?

3. linux-XP file exchange/sharing: is a FAT32 partition
good enough or are there any better solutions?

Thank a lot.

1) You can install linux on any logical partition, or hard drive. In my case, windows is on the first disk all to itself and all the linux partitions are on the second. However, if you wish for both O/Ses to be on the same drive, it is possible to split it into several logical partitions. Partition Magic can do the job and some distros comes with an installer that allows you to resize partitions.

2) The common rule of thumb for the SWAP partition is that it should be double the size of the amount of RAM you have. The others can be any size you want, although I recommend that you should assign more to the /home and /usr partition, if you wish to split these. You can also have all of them in the same partition for more flexibility.

3) To share files, FAT32 is probably the best solution.

Hope that helps =]

Karhoo

welcome to LQ, climater!

=)


yeah, a partition for "/" and one for swap is all you really need... any other partition scheme is purely optional, and less flexible, as khtse stated...

is this gonna be your first time installing gnu/linux, or do you have previous experience??

either way, you might like dell's linux forum:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...rd.id=sw_linux

of course it's no replacement for LQ, but you might find better dell-specific info there, in case you ever need it in the future...

It's also possible for linux to read from an NTFS system(as a fellow LQ member had pointed out).But writing to windows can be tricky(as I found out the hard way).
You have to download the NTFSprogs utility from
www.linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net for SUSE.

Yes, it will be my first time to install linux.
although I am using FC1 sometimes, I've never set up one by myself.
I'm grateful you guys are so helpful
Thanks!

and...
I'd better make sure this:

Does Linux (e.g., SuSE 9) have to boot from a primary partition
or it can also boot up from any a logical partition?

I shoud say, the question is:
If I choose /boot located in a separate partition, Does it
have to be a primary partition or it could be any a logical
partition and grub in MBR would come to control?

linux will pretty much be able to boot from any partition...