Linux Help

[RDR]

No, when it gives you the partition option...



... choose manual and it will let you set up partitions.

On my laptop, (from an 80GB disk), I have:

1. 20GB - NTFS - Windows System - C:\ in Win, \mnt\cdrive in Linux
2. 19GB - EXT2 - Linux System - N/A in Win, \ in Linux
3. 01GB - EXT2 - Linux Swap partition - N/A in Win
4. 40GB - NTFS - Data - D:\ in Win, \mnt\ddrive in Linux

It should sort the rest out for you.

That sounds good, but im afraid i dont understand.

Did you set this up from the get-go or did you do it after you had installed win and did you create the partition afterwards? Also the EXT2 does that refer to an external HD?

Thanks

[TechMouse]

That sounds good, but im afraid i dont understand.

OK, lets try and fix that....

Did you set this up from the get-go or did you do it after you had installed win and did you create the partition afterwards?

Pretty much the first thing I do when I buy a PC is blank the disk and re-install the OS.

I make a point of using a seperate partition for System and Data, because I want to be able to reinstall my OS and not lose all my data files.

So, what I did was... install Windows, but the Windows installer lets you set the size of the partition you want to create.

I then installed Linux, and used the partition manager in the Linux install to set up all the other partitions I wanted.

You can re-size the Windows partition for sure. I've done it with Partition Magic and I've done it with free Linux-based alternatives. A good example is Gparted, which can be downloaded as a LiveCD.

It's pretty user friendly...



You may be able to use the partition manager in the Linux install to re-size an existing partition, but you'll probably find Gparted a lot easier.

Or you could just make life really hard for yourself and use FDISK.

Also the EXT2 does that refer to an external HD?

No, EXT2 is just the filesystem that Linux uses.

Windows 3.1 used FAT16.
Windows 95 used FAT32.
Windows NT / 2000 / XP (and I assume Vista?) uses NTFS.

EXT2 has long been the stardard filesystem for Linux systems, although there are other alternatives (e.g. ReiserFS).

EXT3 is new on the block, and offers EXT2 compatibility with journalling. That is each disk write gets logged and if you ever have a powercut the system can recover it's state.

Hope this helps?

[TechMouse]

Oh, another thing.

You can only have 4 primary partitions.

If you want more, you need to create an extended partition as one of your primaries, in which you can create "logical" partitions.

If you don't need more than 4 partitions, then don't worry about it.

[RDR]

Brilliant

Thanks mark!

gonna take the plunge tonight!

Cant wait... biting my nails though.

[TechMouse]

I'll try and remember to stick MSN on later, on the off chance you need tech support ;)

[RDR]

partition? = o.k. 20gb
install? = o.k.
Working? = not o.k.

xserver issue.. with the graphics but i can find out how to alter to settings to make sure i selectred the right screen size..

bugger

??

PS that gnome partition didnt work, partition magic did the trick perfectly.

[TechMouse]

Sounds bizarre.

Do you get an error message?

if not, it might be dumping an error log somewhere.