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Thread: Installing Linux

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Installing Linux

    I current have a 80GB hard drive with one primary partition (ntfs) that covers the whole drive.

    This worked fine because i had xp installed, and that was all i wanted, but now i'd like to install Linux (mandrake) onto the same hard drive as well.

    Can anyone advise as to how i can resize my one large partition into 3 easily. Any tools that will allow me to do this ?

    Any help would be great.

    Cheers
    -

  2. #2
    Senior Member
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    Mike,

    There's a whole bunch of partitioning tools out there. However before you get to that, clean all the extra stuff out. Get rid of all the temp files, trash can stuff, temp internet files, cookies, scrub it up real good. Then run a defrag to get all the files and pieces closer together. Most Linux distros come with partitioning tools already so you don't have to look very far. In fact during the install most distros will make recommendations as to default installs, partition changes etc. Pretty easy on the default install. You'll be looking at creating a Swap Partition and Linux Native (root), but the distro can do that for you.

    I would recommend not accepting their default and splitting it up like you want and make several more partitions as well. Makes it safer in the long run. At a minimum: swap, root, var, and tmp. It's a good idea to also create a boot, opt, and home as well. There are many different threads written on the reasons so do some reading and I'll leave the door wide open here for others to comment on the size and type of partitions you should make.

    cheers.

    edit: Just as an example, I have made before - Divided 80gb into two 30's and a 20. On the 20gb I created: /boot of 100mb, a swap (double the size of my ram) or 1gb, a 500mb /var, a 500mb /tmp, and a / of 17.5gb.

    If you don't already know, you'll need to read up on primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical. And of course their uses.

    Partitioners: Disk Drake (Mandrake), Diskpart (XP), Partition Magic, etc.

    Here's threads from this site as well:

    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...itioning+tools

    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...t=partitioning





  3. #3
    Senior Member gore's Avatar
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    Originally posted here by Relyt
    Mike,

    There's a whole bunch of partitioning tools out there. However before you get to that, clean all the extra stuff out. Get rid of all the temp files, trash can stuff, temp internet files, cookies, scrub it up real good. Then run a defrag to get all the files and pieces closer together. Most Linux distros come with partitioning tools already so you don't have to look very far. In fact during the install most distros will make recommendations as to default installs, partition changes etc. Pretty easy on the default install. You'll be looking at creating a Swap Partition and Linux Native (root), but the distro can do that for you.

    I would recommend not accepting their default and splitting it up like you want and make several more partitions as well. Makes it safer in the long run. At a minimum: swap, root, var, and tmp. It's a good idea to also create a boot, opt, and home as well. There are many different threads written on the reasons so do some reading and I'll leave the door wide open here for others to comment on the size and type of partitions you should make.

    cheers.

    edit: Just as an example, I have made before - Divided 80gb into two 30's and a 20. On the 20gb I created: /boot of 100mb, a swap (double the size of my ram) or 1gb, a 500mb /var, a 500mb /tmp, and a / of 17.5gb.

    If you don't already know, you'll need to read up on primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical. And of course their uses.

    Partitioners: Disk Drake (Mandrake), Diskpart (XP), Partition Magic, etc.

    Here's threads from this site as well:

    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...itioning+tools

    http://www.antionline.com/showthread...t=partitioning
    Blah. Why do you kids always have to make this harder than it needs to be? If Mandrake was any easier to install it would come with a Hand Job.

    Just grab the ISO files off http://www.linuxiso.org burn them to a CD using the "burn image" option, or something similar (Check what type of CD-Recording software you have and RTFM on how to do it correctly). If you don't have a CD burner, go to the store, hand the person at the counter about $40.00 and buy Mandrake Linux. RTFM, and since it is your first time, don't listen to that **** about not accepting default partitions, you don't need to set all these up with some magic sell book, just let the Mandrake wizard thingy do it's own magic.

    NTFS sholdn't give you a problem as most new versions of Linux will be able to handle it. The recommendations he gave you are pretty much what it does for you automagically.

    Shove the CD in a drive and reboot. The screen comes up and you press "Enter" to begin installation. If you need your hand held grab the books it comes with and follow along. If you didn't buy it, go to the Mandrake site and print out an installation manual.

    Just be sure it finds the Windows partition and resizes it for you. Should work fine.

  4. #4
    Trumpet-Eared Gentoo Freak
    Join Date
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    Also be sure to let windows on the first partition. I've had some issues before with winblows not working if behind linux.

    I did commandline installs actually almost from the beginning, which gives you even more control and also more knowledge. I'm glad that my third install was gentoo ... but heh thats just my opinion.
    I prefer ( even with gui-based installs ) to use first fdisk and setup partitions manually. Check it out on a prompt.

    #fdisk /dev/hda (where hda is your harddisk )
    type m for help on functions, and p to see your current partition scheme.

    Its up to you what install you want and how you want to do it, enough flavors out there.

    Greetz,
    Come and check out our wargame-site @ http://www.rootcontest.org
    We chat @ irc.smdc-network.org #lobby

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