Hi. I'm wanting to install the latest version of zipslack onto my computer, but I'm not sure how to properly partition my drive. Mostly I'm just not sure which format is best.
Yes, this is my first linux distro, but I'm going to take the time to learn Linux inside and out for professional purposes. I doubt there's a better crash course.

Have you read the installation instructions? BTW this isn't a full blown slack distro.

Zipslack runs on a FAT32 partition so you need to make sure your XP partition is not NTFS. To boot slack you will need a floppy disk.

Slackware is a wonderful distro to learn linux on, but just curiously, why ZipSlack?

You will get a much better "feel" for the OS by installing the full blown version of Slackware. ZipSlack is just a minimalist version, mainly for very small systems and for making a Zip disk OS.

With ZipSlack, you shouldn't need to partition at all. ZipSlack is entirely self-contained on a Zip disk.

If you don't want to risk messing up your existing installation, you may also want to check out some of the distros that run from a CD, such as Knoppix.

In order to really learn Linux inside and out, though, you should consider installing a full distribution on your hard drive. Partitioning is explained in the Partitioning HOWTO, but you really don't need to worry too much about it; if you have a spare partition, many distributions are smart enough to figure out how to use it.

well mainly because I only have a dial up which itself I don't have access to 24/7. I also figured, it's all self contained and would give me a decent feel for it for now. Until I can finally download a full iso.

I am curious, would it be possible to have zipslack on a cd? Bootable from there.

I don't have a spare partition yet (windows self contained help is rather shitty) and my main disk is ntfs right now.

> I am curious, would it be possible to have zipslack on a cd?Bootable from there.

I believe so. If you can't download the ISO's you might also check out purchasing a copy of Slackware on CD.

http://linuxcentral.com is a good start. In fact, one of the Slackware disks is a complete bootable OS (Disk 2, I believe). The disks there are around $3 a copy (plus shipping).

Personally, I recommend purchasing a packaged copy if you're a newbie, mainly because most distros come with some documentation to help you, but if you don't want to shell out the $$, the burned CD's at linuxcentral are another good option (aside from downloading the ISO's yourself).

The only Disks I've got right now are formatted with a RAW filesystem. Would that work? I don't see a way to reformat them at this point.

I do plan on buying a full distro of slackware, it's just that for now, I'm really poor too.

There are some good threads on making bootable CD's out of Slackware.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ck+bootable+cd

would be a good start.

Also make sure to read the documentation that comes with ZipSlack. It should tell you which kernel to install for your system, and how to configure your bootloader properly (probably lilo).

Other than that, follow the same instructions for ZipSlack as you would with a zip disk. You can also (optionally) make a set of bootable floppy disks with one of the Slackware packages. That might be a good option for you to get started with your ZipSlack installiation.

Look on Slackware's FTP site for floppy disk images.

Shade13 did you ever get zipslack running? I was dual booting redhat9
and mdk9.1 on my laptop bit for various reasons I decided to put xp
back on the hd. I still wanted a linux distro to play with so I dl zipslack
installed it. The other folks are right, learning how to partition is a skill
that is good to have but zip with a good book would be a good learning
experience. As stated above you will need to put xp on a fat 32 partition
and use a dos boot disk but it is fairly easy to set-up.