Hey folks I was wondering can I install linux onto my secondary hard drive? like from the ISO file. like make the HD with a linux partition or do I have to make it primary and install it that away?

Are you trying to dual boot with windows?

Yes, you can install Linux on any drive you want.

No, Linux does not have to be installed to a primary partition (although many automatic partitioning utilities in the installers will in fact do this, it is not required), and in fact, when dual booting with Windows, especially if Windows 2000 or above, it is much better to install Linux to logical partitions rather than primary. Otherwise, Windows attempts to load drivers and mount the partitions, which it can't do, which means you have to wait for it to fail, timeout, retry, fail, timeout before it will load your desktop.

So it it definitely worth either pre-partitioning to make some extra logical partitions, or using any "custom" partitioning option in your distro's install routine to make sure that Linux is installed to logical partitions rather than primary.

Hope this helps.

Can the swap partition also be a logical drive in the overall extended linux partition? Ressurecting and hijacking this thread, since it answered one question for me already.

Basically, I want to have Linux be first on the HD. So want an extended partition at the beginning of the drive, with logical drives for Swap, /, /var, and /tmp. Then a primary partition for WindowsXP to be installed to. Will this setup work? And also, is there any performance differences in linux running on logical drives as opposed to primary?

Also, will WindowsXP suffer performance issues from being further on the drive? I only use it for gaming.

Yes.
Windoze will have to be first on your drive, or you have to jump through a bunch
of hoops to get it to boot, if you can. You will not see any performance gain by that.
Btw - Windoze XP always suffers performance issues - they're built into the OS. ;-)
I'm not sure if you can make an Extended partition come before a Primary, but there
is absolutely no need to do this (if it's possible).

If you install Linux first, Windoze will write over your bootloader and you'll have to fix it.
When you install Linux last, you can install LILO and setup your dual boot with Windoze
and Linux. So install Windoze first, then Linux.

Well, see, right now the drive only has XP on it. So I've got PartitionMagic that I can use to set up all the partitions ahead of time. That's the way that I can set up the linux partition to be at the beginning of the drive. Then install XP to its partition, then install linux after that.

Or will that not work at all?

I had to reformat a drive with XP installed Tuesday, and I could NOT move the
stinking NTFS first partition with PM7, nor could I add unallocated space that
was in the extended partition to it and format it. (NTFS was the first partition,
which in Linux language is /dev/hda1.)

My suggestion, and the way I do it, is leave everything for Linux as unallocated
space, then partition it with cfdisk and format it when you do the install. Btw -
which Linux OS are you installing? Gone to buy parts to build a new comp...

This is probably due to the version of PM. I only point it out because these things are important-- if you use XP (with it's newer version of NTFS), or want to create ext3 Linux partitions as below (although this is not recommended), you really need PM v.8, as v.7 did not have some of the functionality that one needs to manage current filesystems on both sides of the fence.

Absolutely!!! It is definitely best to leave the space unallocated if possible. If that is not possible, the second best option is to make any Linux partitions made via PM as ext2 -- then reformat them to the appropriate filesystem during the Linux install (even if that fs is ext2, just like they're already supposed to be).

The rule to remember: Use Windows tools to manage Windows filesystems, and use Linux tools to manage Linux filesystems wherever possible. Linux can manage Windows filesystems adequately, but Windows doesn't manage Linux filesystems well at all, and both OSes manage their native filesystems better than they do foreign ones.