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Partition and installation questions
Hello and thanx for letting me on the fourm.
I am a long time windows user and have decided to try my hand with linux. I have downloaded the 8.0 version of slackware iso file. I understand that i need to setup partitions. This is where i am not too sure. I have used fdisk to setup a windows install so i understand the basics of partitions. My question is what exactly must i do to set up a dual-boot. I have read of lilo but understand that it messes with the MBR since i will probably want to reinstall windows after the partition, i need to know if there are any alternatives availble. Also, how exactly should i set the partitions? while i have made patitions before, it was only as a purcursor to installing a single MS operating system and i am unsure how to setup for a dual boot. I have read some on the net and get a different opinion from 2 partitions to 6 partitions. So I am not sure. I am running a compaq presario with a 40 GB hd. 128m ram, 1.6 ghz amd antholon procesor. At this time i am not too concernend about loading any peripheral drivers, except kb, video, and HD so i can get a basic load of the linux os. I think i can figure out later how to load those elements after i get a stable boot out of the os. also, i read somewhere that i want to set up, what sounded to me, a patition to share data between the two os's (sound and video files for instance) is this possible? Excuse the deluge of questions, i just wanted to make sure that i dont screw this up. any help would be greatly appreciated. Best Regards, CHOW |
if it is possible, why not download the latest Slackware 9.1? I can help you along if you are uisng Slackware 9.1 as my experience was from there.
Before you start, it's alwals good to back up all your important data from Windows. Hard as we tried not to hose Windows, that kind of things happen. Check now how many partitions that you have got. I guess you have either a 40G all for your C or you may have a D. And bother C abd D could have taken up all the space of the 40G. If that's the case, you need to 1st repartion the 40G into somthing like this: 10G ---->C(leave this as NTFS) 10G ---->D(make this a vfat, or FAT32 for files sharing between Win and Linux) 20G ---->Unpartitioned The repartitioning is a tricky operation itself, but many have find Partition Magic very good at this. But backup all your important data b4 you proceed. Once the Windows portion is done, you can now boot up your slack 9.1 1st cd. Hit enter and enter until you can ask to do a setup. From there, you type cfdisk. A little table will appear and from there you can further partition the unpartioned part of the drive. you need 2 linux partitions(type 83) and a swap (type 82). Post back when you have reach this part of the installation. BTW, I am just repeating many posts and guides you can find either here or from the net. Once you are past the partitioning portion, the rest are no brainer. Enjoy your Slacking time. |
Thanx for the info. I am going to try your advice. I have a shareware coppy of patition magic, but as a demo, all it does when i click on 'apply' is open a dialog box telling me that i have to buy the comercial version to apply the settings. Am going to try bootit NG. It will not, however, allow me to resize the partition because the bootit NG is resident on the partition being resized. So i am going to delete the primary partion and reset bootit ng for the partition. and start from scratch. Not a great loss since i deleted and reinstalled my system 2 days ago anyway. Also, i failed to mention, that i am using win98 so NTFS partitions are not possible. i assume a fat-32 for the c:\ drive will be just fine. Also, i mistyped, i have slackware 9.0 I will take your advice, start the reistall now, and hopefully will have some good news before i go to work late this afternoon. Thanx for your help and time.
Best Regards, CHOW |
ok then, do a fresh install of your Win98, but split your drive to C and D and an "unpartitioned". yes, Win98 only have fat32 or vfat in linux talk. That's fine.
Since you have not started, you should consider getting 9.1 rather than 9.0. I am not sure how easy to upgrade from 9.0 to 9.1 or current, i hope it is easy. |
Quote:
Reinstall Windows. During the partitioning step, make the Windows partition smaller than usual, leaving blank unpartitioned space on your hd. Leave as much space as want to give to Linux. Then just proceed with the Windows installation as you normally would. After Windows is installed, using the Linux 'cfdisk' to make partitions for Linux in this blank space will be very easy. If you don't want to reinstall Windows, then you will have to shrink the Windows partition to make blank space. If you don't want to use Partition Magic, there are programs such as fips and GNU Parted that can resize too, but they are command line tools. |
Yeah install windows first. make a windows bootdisk.
Use windows/DOS fdisk to create FAT partitions Install windows to a primary windows FAT32. Create an extended partition and a FAT32 logical drive there for exchanging data or whatever. Leave empty space. then create your linux partitions inside the extended partition using linux fdisk. I always have a tomsrtbt linux floppy handy for doing linux partition work and other such stuff. Create a type 82 swap partition (128MB is usually plenty for most work), and at least one type 83 linux native partition for the / directory. For a little more chance of saving personal files and configuration changes also create a separate type 83 partition for your /home directory. This should be around 100MB per user. Slackware setup will recognize the partitions and do the formatting for you. Don't mind doing the install a few times till you get it right. You'll probably use it a few minutes or weeks and decide to refine your installation anyway. Have a look at my HOWTO for something I call KILL BILL. It lets you double click an icon on the w98 desktop and boot straight into Slackware! http://home.earthlink.net/~gnashley/...ix8_1howto.htm |
OK, new user (SuSe 9.0) with a Toshiba laptop, 40GB. I have successfully set the system up with LILO for dual boot into Linux/XP. I wanted to use a 13GB FAT32 partition for sharing files, but Linux only shows my /windows/C (NTFS) partition on the desktop, not the /windows/D (FAT 32) partition.
Here is my partition info: DEVICE SIZE TYPE MOUNT START END /dev/hda 37.2 GB TOSHIBA 0 4863 /dev/hda1 13.3 GB HPHS/NTFS /windows/C 0 1736 /dev/hda2 941.2MB Linux swap swap 1737 1856 /dev/hda3 10.0 GB Linux native / 1857 3162 /dev/hda4 13.0 GB Win95 FAT32 LBA /windows/D 3163 4863 When I boot into XP, I can access the D drive, but from Linux it does not show and seems unaccessible. What did I do wrong? Much Thanks Forres |
What happens when you try to look in /windows/D ?
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thanx for all of your input. I have used booit NG to partition my drive. Seems to be working fine. Now i am trying to create the boot disk with rawrite. the slackware website states to use the following syntax for the bare.i install.
rawrite bare.i a: The slackware.org install help section states that the install disk has the file 'bare.i'. however, there is only a directory called 'bare.i'. i attempted to see if rawrite would compile the install disks using the directory name as the file. no such luck. any advice? any help would be apreciated. Best Regards, CHOW |
Look in the 'bootdisks' directory for the 'bare.i' file. If you still can't find it, here's a download:
http://slackware.oregonstate.edu/sla...otdisks/bare.i |
I usually copy the boot and rootdisk images to the top level (C:) directory.
Rawrite tolerates no spaces in names. then I click on rawrite and let it ask me for the source file name and then the destination drive. For the root disks (install.1 and install.2) you may need to rename the files. Windows may see them as .gz files. anyway rename them simply install.a and install.b if rawrite doesn't recognize them, |
I finally got the linux cd to boot. when i set the partition, for some reason, windows recognizes the swap partition as a valid windows file. on my windows partitions i one partition for drive c. and then a second partition for drive d. after i used linux cfdisk to make the swap partition. I rebooted into windows. and it read the linux swap disk as drive 'd' and the original second fat-32 disk as drive 'e'. and when windows boots, it goes directly into scandisk and, of course, hangs. Why is windows even reading the disk? any thoughts?
Best Regards, CHOW |
I had heard of this happening under winXP but not win98.
If you can successfully boot windows you may be able to hide the drive from windows. Windows seems to be much happier not being aware of Linux's presence. If you put the linux partitions inside the windows extended partition it doesn't see them. But, having a win extended with no windows logical drives sometimes confuses fdisk as well. The scheme I gave above seems to work best: hda1 Primary Windows partition hda2 Windows extended partition hda5 A FAT partition hda6 type 82 Linux swap hda7 type 83 linux native Any partitions that you might want to resize should come here at the end. If you remove and resize partitions in the middle then the drive letters in windows and the partition numbers under linux fdisk will be jumbled. Actualy the FAT (hda5) could probably be changed to type 82 for swap. It's just that both fdisks are happier when the windows extended partition is not created and then left empty. |
gnashley
hope you can help me with this one. Installed winXP on hda1 and slack9 on hda6, partitions look like: /dev/hda1 * 1 243 1951866 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda2 244 2431 17575110 5 Extended /dev/hda5 244 486 1951866 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda6 487 851 2931831 83 Linux /dev/hda7 852 1216 2931831 83 Linux /dev/hda8 1217 2369 9261441 b W95 FAT32 /dev/hda9 2370 2431 497983+ 82 Linux swap lilo.conf like: # LILO configuration file # generated by 'liloconfig' # Start LILO global section lba32 # Allow booting past 1024th cylinder with a recent BIOS append="hdd=ide-scsi" boot = /dev/hda6 message = /boot/boot_message.txt prompt timeout = 1200 change-rules reset # VESA framebuffer console @ 1024x768x32k vga = 790 other = /dev/hda8 label = DOS table = /dev/hda # DOS bootable partition config ends # Linux bootable partition config begins image = /boot/vmlinuz root = /dev/hda6 label = Linux read-only # Linux bootable partition config ends _________________________ winxp boots ok, the boot loader hasn't changed at all. Linux won't boot. Got any ideas? |
Sorry folks, answered the Q myself by changing boot=/dev/hda6 to boot=/dev/hda. and installing lilo to the boot partition.
Thanks anyways |
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