I was wondering if it would be a bad idea to install Slack 10.1 on my notebook? I am following this walk through step by step since I have never installed Slack and the whole fdisk thing is new to me...
http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...?postid=311808

Here are the specifics:

HP pavilion zv5000

Intel Pentium 4 3.02GHz
512 DDR RAM
ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 IGP
40GB hard drive
CDROM Burner/DVD ROM
14.5 widescreen.

Should have no problem with that at all.... Though I would consider using an application such as BootIt NG (I suggest it because it's free and easy, and doesn't require a working OS to use) to resize the existing partition, which I'm guessing is NTFS, so you can dualboot with the original configuration. I find that DVD playback on my laptop in Linux is a little choppy, yet for some reason it's perfect in Windows, so I dualboot with that. I also keep Windows around for any compsci prof that accuses me of being "subversive".

Sorry - This will be a full install of Slack & there is no NTFS partition on this system

I'm talking about the pre-existing install of Windows, presumably XP, that came with the computer. No sense ditching it entirely, as you will find that there are some apps that only work under Windows. Mostly games, but there's a few others, some of whose functionality is simply not mimicked with any Linux apps.

Besides which, how much space are you planning on actually using with Linux? The only Linux system I have that's even remotely close to filling 40GB of space is the fileserver, and that's mostly due to the MP3/OGG collection. It isn't a bad idea to keep, say, 5GB for Windows. It'll also help if you ever end up sending it to tech. support/hardware support, because the first thing they'll do if they see Linux is quickrestore it, and charge you for the pleasure. Have LILO boot directly into Windows without prompting when you send it in, and nobody's the wiser. As long as Windows is running fine, they won't actually check the size of the partition it's installed on. When you're ready to get back into Linux, hold down CTRL during the POST, and LILO will give you the menu again.

I am still not very strong with understaning the different partitions like primary, extended, swap, root, and all that other stuff. It is very new to me and I co-worker (Debian user) walked me through a fast install of getting slack installing via all 3GB of everything from the disk. I am sure I will run into an issue here soon.

Slack is a great distro to learn.

What I can tell you from my own experience is that with 512MB of RAM, you probably won't be using the swap very often at all. Heck, my own laptop has 256MB of RAM and 128MB of swap, and I have never had a memory problem. It probably wouldn't hurt your system to have no swap at all, because Linux is different from Windows in how it treats swap usage.

As for the partitioning, having it all on one partition won't hurt you. Using my laptop as an example again, I've got Linux installed all to one partition. I didn't install every package like you did, but I've still got it all on one partition. The only real downside is that if, for some reason, you lose your install partition, you'll lose your /home as well, which means all of your user files etc.. It's probably never going to come to that barring a hardware failure which would kill your data no matter what partition it's on, but it does mean that if you end up reinstalling Linux, you'll lose everything.

As for having all of the packages installed, you've got the disk space, so why not? Aside from taking up space, the programs won't interact (postiively or negatively) if they aren't running at the same time. Even if they are running at the same time, Linux doesn't allow memory sharing between applications like Windows, so a single program crashing is unlikely to bring down the whole system unless it's your shell or X server.


If you haven't already done it, you should create a new user account and use that instead of the root account. A large part of Linux's security and stability comes from applications being run in user space without write access to the bulk of the hard drive. If you're running as root, they have access to the whole gamut, completely ignoring permissions.

Also, you may want to set up X as your default run mode, instead of CLI. I'd wait until you've got X working perfectly before doing that, of course. It's a widescreen laptop, you said, so you'll probably want to run (as root) xorgconfig to set the resolution properly. You may also want to download the FireGL drivers from ati.com. We (the community) can help with that if you need any tips on how to do either of those.

Good luck, and welcome to better computing.

The main reason for keeping Windows as a partition on a laptop is all of the peripherals that don't work under Linux (yet). Laptops are full of obscure ICs like the sound, cardbus bridge and wireless from manufacturers that just don't want to cooperate with Linux driver writers. The problem has arisen because most laptops are designed in Taiwanby OEMs.
Slackware will run happily from a logical partition, it does not even need to be bootable.

For easier upgrades and speed of your system I recommend that you create more than one partition. Eg, I have usually four partitions: swap, /, /boot and /home.

The difference of primary and other distributions is virtually irrelevant to Linux. It's a historical limitation of PCs and some other OSs that they can handle up to four primary partitions, and that they only can boot from these. DOS is an example. For Linux it's meaningless. You can create all your Linux partitions as logical partitions in the Extended partition.

Regarding support of laptop hardware: It *may* require some hard handwork to get everything going, but apart from power saving (ACPI and APM) and soft modems problems are very rare. It's been years that I had trouble with X on a laptop due to a very exotic onboard graphics chip. Only thing is, that the default setup for X and sound may turn out not to be very useful. Be patient, and be ready to learn, and you will get along and solve your problems one by one.

There *are* laptops that Linux won't run on, but they are very rare. It is very unlikely that yours is one of these.

gargamel

gargamel

Is there somewhere online that will show me how to do this either via Fdisk or CFdisk? I have never done this before and I guess I need to read it word for word or have someone specifically show me how this should be done.

Thanks for any help.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/
http://www.bitbenderforums.com/vb22/...?postid=311808

First reading might be the info on http://www.slackware.com, however.

And, BTW, the SuSE Support Database has loads of helpful articles, there is certainly something on partitioning, too: http://sdb.suse.com. There are also some good how-tos on the SuSE pages, that are useful on any Linux system, not just SuSE.

I suggest that you also go to the homepage of TLDP and search for 'partition'. It's not easy reading, so take your time. You will learn a lot, and in the end you will be able to install Slackware next to Windows without risking to lose your 'alternative' OS. ;-)

Let me, however, suggest that you *** M A K E A B A C K U P *** of your harddisc, in any case, before you start!!!

[I never had to use the backup, but you aren't necessarily hit by a car when you cross the road while the traffic light is red. Even if you do it a hundred times without getting hurt, it is not recommended.]

Hope that helps, good luck

gargamel

The only problem that I foresee you may run into is with your video card. I believe the official ati drivers won't work with the mobility series so you will be stuck with the free drivers. So long as your not going to be doing gaming or graphics intensive tasks this won't be a problem. Just don't waste your time trying to install the ati drivers.

hey i live a couple hrs south of you (near Ft Myers). you should bring the notebook down some weekend and i could help (i'm doing several installations right now, one for a friend and one for a backup server).

like someone mentioned above i like to partition the hd like this:

1 (hda1) /boot (* set bootable) 30-100mb
2 (hda2) swap (2x RAM)
3 (hda3) / (+/- 20% hd)
3a / (sometimes i put a 2nd / to experiment with other distros)
(which would make this hda4, and /home hda5)
4 (hda4) /home (remaining space)

the advantage of this system is that:
1. you get /boot at the beginning of the drive to satisfy older bios.
2. you get swap and / near the beginning as well where you have better performance
note: you might want to move /home up a partition or two for heavy file serving.
3. your home directory is on its own partition so you don't lose all your personal data if you sod the system and decide to reinstall/reformat etc. if you experiment with other distros, you can use common /boot, swap, and /home partitions.


you go about setting up the hard-drive with fdisk as follows:

1. boot with a linux live-boot CD (make cdrom bootable in bios if needed).

2. get root prompt if you don't have it (it should be a "#" prompt or say root@xxxx or something)... if not type "su" (for super user-that makes you root) and try to figure out the root password for the live CD (usually it is documented on the distro website if you can't guess the default or it doesn't start as root.

3. type "fdisk /dev/hda" at the root prompt (you might need a different drive if you have scsi or raid).

4. type "m" and you will be greeted with a listing of all available commands...

5. type "d" and follow prompts to delete existing partitions (it will ask you partition number).
-if you don't know partition numbers i think "p" will print the partition table to screen until there are no partitions left ("m" whenever you're unsure of a command).

6. type "n" (i think, check "m") to make new partition. it should suggest first head/cyl etc for default starting point, probably just hit enter to accept. then for end point type "+50M" to specify size instead of ending point (replace with "+xM" where x is your desired size).

7. repeat step 6 for your next 3 or 4 partitions (using "+xG" for GB if i remember correctly), with the exception of the final partition.... accept the default ending point when prompted for the final partition (that way you use the entire hd ;-).

8. type "a" and enter "1" for the partition to be made bootable.

9. type "w" to write the partition table and exit and you've created the partitions!

i'll add another post in a second to explain how to setup the file systems, and some suggestions about file system types...

then you have the option to choose a file system for each partition. i would make suggestions as follows...

ext2--good file system for old/slow computers
-------good for /boot (XFS and perhaps Reiser are not supported by grub and/or lilo)
-------reason... some jouralized file systems use first sectors needed for boot.
ext3--Journalized and higher performance version of ext2.
-------good for faster computers and works for /boot (i think)
reiser-mature, efficient, journalized (i like it for / and /home)
xfs----newer, efficient, journalized (i also like it for / and /home)
swap--file system that must be used for swap partition

there are other file systems, you can google to find out about them, but these are the ones i use the most and have an opinion about.

to setup a file system on your newly created partitions, issue one of these commands using the syntax below:

ext2==mke2fs
ext3==mke2fs -j
reiser=mkreiserfs
swap==mkswap
xfs===mkfs.xfs

syntax: command device like this:
"mke2fs /dev/hda1" (replacing hda1 with your drive and partition number).
repeat the process till you have created a file system on each partition.
then you can activate the swap partition with the command: "swapon /dev/hda2" (where hda2 would be your swap partition).

hopefully this helps. i dont remember if slack prompts you for some of this info... maybe others can make suggestions as well....

congratulations on choosing a distro that will help you expand your knowledge of the inner-workings of linux and open to view new opportunities for power, productivity, profitability and peace (sry can't think of any more "p" words).

good luck

lol bah... just noticed slack has a much better guide than all the nonsense i typed... check it here:

http://www.slackware.com/install/