Hi Mandrivausers.org,

Nice to say hello to all of you.

I have read some articles on linux and its distribution and some are still arent clear to me.
I still havent tried to install an linux OS but i tried runnng a live CD of Mandriva. Im confused the partition needed . I am a total noob.
I tried searching some of the post but nothing seems to fit my problem. Forgive me if there is the same post like mine.

I have questions in installation

I have laptop, now it has a three partition hard drive. drive c:,d:,e:, 14gb-50gb-50gb....xp,vista, free space partition respectively...

1. Will the 14gb be enough to mandriva installaltion or should I consider big space?

2. In some installation guide, I have seen that that partitioning option is USE FREE SPACE and CUSTOMDISK PARTITIONING..
Will the installation find my 50 gb free space at drive e:?

3. I also read that you have to make more partition for linux installation, in my current partition should I still need to a new partition? maybe drive f: and drive g:? or Mandriva installation will make a partition on the drive e: if i choose drive e:

4. Is it possible and not too much to have a triple boot? I will love it if it is possible

Hope someone could enlighten my mind.

Best regards,

Mar

Hello and Welcome to Mandrivausers.org affectionately known as MUB.
I can answer some of your questions but not all.

1. 14gb is more than enough to install Mandriva.
2. Not too sure how things will behave here. The Use Free Space option usually partitions a Windows installation and uses the free space that Windows does not use on the given drive.
3. Mandriva installation will create the required partitions for you in the space you select.
4. It is certainly possible to triple boot, but I have not done this myself so I will leave that to someone who has.

A thing to note about Linux is that drive letters are not used as they are in windows. Partitions are referenced like :- Drive c: becomes /hda/ and D: becomes /hdb/ etc. Each drive then has its own partitions which are referenced :- /hda1/ /hda6/ etc.
If you are not using Drive E: for anything then this would be the drive to install to. At this moment I would wait until some of the more enlightened users come onboard to tell you how to do this. It may take a few hours before you get further replies as there are different timezones involved and some of the others will be sleeping.
I hope this helps some of your queries.

Just wanted to add, if it's one hard disk, then it would be /dev/hda or /dev/sda as it's only on one hard disk. If there is a second hard disk, then it would be /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb and also depends whether attached to the primary or secondary controller.

For example a machine I have at home has two hard disks on the primary controller, and two CD/DVD drives on the secondary controller. This then ends up as:

First HDD - /dev/hda
Second HDD - /dev/hdb
First CD/DVD - /dev/hdc
Second CD/DVD - /dev/hdd

partitions are then numbered on the disk. In your instance it would be:

/dev/sda1 - C:
/dev/sda2 - D:
/dev/sda3 - E:

You can choose custom partition and then let Mandriva auto-partition the free space. This will normally create three partitions:

/dev/sda5 - swap
/dev/sda6 - /
/dev/sda7 - /home

Even if the disk was blank, the partitioning would be exactly identical to what I've chosen above. I would suggest however, that you just use custom, and then do two partitions. One for swap and one for /. That way, you're not restricting yourself by allocating too much space to /home and then finding you can't install many apps! If you've only got 14GB you can follow this partitioning scheme, else if 50GB, then go for the full three. 14GB can technically be partitioned correctly, but it can be limiting between what to allocate for / and /home. You won't need more than 1GB for swap, although 512MB would be sufficient as a minimum.

Triple, quadruple booting, or more, is do-able. I make one installation a base or home for grub and edit that file for all others. I do not chain load except for windows.

HI,

Thanks for the kind answers. Truly where our users feel @ /home.....Thanks
Thanks SilverSurfer60, ianw1974 and Ixthusdan.

So i see. Based on your answer, I finally made up my mind to install it in my drive E:> I usually used this drive as a common drive for my xp and vista. Maybe I'll just use mu portable harddrive asa common.
I only used one hard drive. Which is a 120gb harddrive of my laptop. But.....

Is DVD/CD drives and virtual are counted as drives? It would make c,d,e,f and g drives are now used. Will this will be the case
/dev/sda1 - C:
/dev/sda2 - D:
/dev/sda3 - E: (free space)
/dev/sda4 - F: dvd/cd
/dev/sda5 -G: virtual drive
/dev/sda6 - swap ----after installation?
/dev/sda7- /
/dev/sda8 - /home

or

/dev/sda1 - C:
/dev/sda2 - D:
/dev/sda3? - E: (free space) --after installation
/dev/sda3 - E: swap
/dev/sda4- F: /
/dev/sda5 - G: /home
/dev/sda6 -H: dvd/cd
/dev/sda7 -I: virtual drive


I already back-up my computer but restoring it when worst will happen is the last thing in my mind. I dont want to undergo to that. Very stressful. I think.

Please explain further. Timezone makes other users a world apart. I will be waiting for your answer guys. Thank a lot.

Best regards,
Mark

Right, I have had a cup of coffee so I will try and answer your question
After installation you should finish up with:-
/dev/sda1 = Windows
/dev/sda2 = Windows
/dev/sda3 will no longer be but will become
/dev/sda5 /home
/dev/sda6 /swap
/dev/sda7 /

your CD/DVD will be mounted under 'media:cdrom' regardless of what it is. I say mounted because that is the terminology used instead of the Windows Letters.
As far as I know the above is correct, if it is not someone will put me in my place, and correct any mistakes.

Where your portable drive would be mounted I am not sure.
I need another cup of coffee now.

hi SilverSurfer60, and MUB,


Sorry for late response. I just came back from work.

Maybe Ill install on Wednesday. and see if it will work. I hope so.

QUOTE

No point in being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway

Ill use my 50gb free. I will just fill every window drives so that there will no free space and mandriva installation
will get the free space in my 50gb free space in drive E:. Hows that? My understanding is that installation will only see
used space and free space in hard drives. Then it will cut a portion of that free space for its installation where it will get and
create its 3 new partition from the cut free portion.... I hope my understanding is right.......

B4 i will install....Defrag every windows installation...ryt

anymore tips b4 i install it on wednesday.

Thanks.

Mark

Good morning K1n6, at least it's morning where I am.
In response to your last posting I will be in uncharted waters for myself as I have never had to make the choices you are going to make, so please take my thoughts as just thoughts and not as words from an expert. Maybe someone with more experience could offer better advice here.
Anyhow I see things this way. You should not need to fill your windows partitions as they are partitions and in all sense separate drives. With this in mind when you begin to install I would be inclined to select custom partitioning as suggested by Ianw1974. This way you will be sure to partition and format the correct section of your hard drive.
I do believe your understanding is for a hard drive with just the one windows partition, because normally Windows is very greedy and will use the whole of the available space and the Mandriva installer is able to regain the unused space from Windows and resize the Windows partition. Therefore in your case you will probably need to select the partition that you want to install to.
I sincerely hope you understand my explanation and indeed my understanding is correct. If your are in any doubt post back before installing as you could quite possibly overwrite one of your Windows installs. I would hate to think I gave you the wrong information and you had to reformat and start all over.

A note of caution: You must allow windows free space on its drive for the page file. Windows will stop running if you inadvertently do not allow for space in its partitions. You can always adjust the page file to a smaller size, but then windows will work slower than it already does. It is best to allow empty space on the windows partition that has the operating system.

Note that on dualboot computers it is generally much easier to get an acess from linux to data on windows partitions than vice versa.
Especially when this data is on fat partitions (although it works ok with ntfs nowadays).
Especially if you are simply trying out and learning your ways around in linux.
Therefore my approach has usually been to give linux enough space for system and essential software and data, but not much more. Music, pics and documents that need to be accessible from both linux and windows are better to be left on windows partitions. I would say, nowadays 15GB would be generous for linux, for most learning purposes even 4-5GB will do just fine.

Second, do not try to compare linux and windows filesystems. It will be just plain confusing, cause logic is quite different. As you do different administration tasks in linux, you will learn how it works, for the beginning you wont need to touch anuthing but your /home for personal data and /mnt where windows partitions will be mounted.

Third, partitioning the space you are going to use for linux depends on what you are going to use it for. Schemes vary enormously. For ordinary home-office use 4-5GB / partition is fine, rest of the space can be made into separate /home (separate home is good if you reinstall, e.g. if trying another distro or upgrading Mandriva - you can reformat / but leave /home with your data and docs intact). Partitioning is most confusing part for us noobs, so if your into learning do it the hard way, do some home reading and custom-partition your install.

Oh, and BACKUP YOUR EXISTING DATA!
Did I mention backup?
Anyway, dont forget to backup.

Welcome to the club
Wahur

hi MUB,

I already installed the Mandriva. I can t hold myself..hehehe.... I think everything went out well. My xp and vista is still there and booting quitely and smoothly.
I used ianw1974 s advise to use custom installation. At first, Im still exploring until i figured it out. Setting my drive E as empty. Then auto allocate.
/home is quite big so i resized it.Leaving 4 drives for linux.

Though when i reboot the Mandriva. It just show the GRUB selection , of course, I selected, Mandriva then it show that picture but wont boot. Maybe there is a problem in booting. I just dont know. Please help me. plssssss

I just discover that the drives that Linux has created is not visible in windows. But the good thing is Windows vista became faster after i give up drive E.

Ill be waiitng for response on how it will boot properly. Or you just give me a link.

Many thanks who help me. Hope my question can also help other noobs like me.

Mark

Before we start analyzing things here I would like to ask a question as your explanation is a little mixed up or it could be me that's a bit thick.
First when you say Windows is running well how are you starting your Windows, by this I mean are you starting them from the grub menu?
I ask this as there are a number of reasons why Linux would not boot and of course we need to know which way to go forward.

Don't worry about the Linux partition not showing up in Windows as Windows knows nothing about Linux.

Is'nt Mandriva booting into the graphical interface (KDE) and you see a black screen with something like

hi MUB,

I dont know about KDE but at first it intialize...load the GRUB menu aand show the Mandriva picture with selection of

Boot in Mandriva (i dont remember exactly the word)
Boot in Mandriva Safe mode (i think)
Boot in Windows ( if you select this, it will show the black background which is a native window boot, here you can select xp and vista)

so, of course. I will select Boot in Mandriva. Then it will show the mandriva picture(with picture and status bar on the left or right bottom) but status bar is not moving.

as far as I can remember in the installation....in booting, maybe this is a problem. i dont know...

*boot
****
****failsafe
****windows

I think this is the order of booting..Maybe.................


Thanks for advice and kind answers.

Good Morning BTW.....

Coffee in the morning is great.

siiiiippppp..sip..

wow..

While Mandriva is booting (the bar) hit escape and tell us where it hangs. (the last thing on the screen)

Hi MUB and Ixthusdan,


Here is all I can get when I hit esc during booting. Hope it is readable.

Here is shot i got.



Also during installation I remember that i have never gone

Package Group Selection, I was given right away with KDE
neither root password/user account. Nor resolution.

Weird?



Thanks.

K1n6

I love my Opera browser! I had to use it's zoom feature to read the text in the image you posted. The last line reads: "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!"

If you have any USB drives plugged in on boot up, that is one possible cause of your problem.

See the following threads for some other things to look for:
http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=80436
http://forum.mandriva.com/viewtopic.php?t=75160

FYI, you can upload larger images to imageshack or choose not to resize the image, just optimize it.

It stirs up my head David. Quite confusing for a beginner like me. I dont know where to start the
fix or should I reinstall it again. BTW, I have no USB drives connected during installation.


I hope I can install MAndriva as soon as possible. Ill dump all my windows OS....also install other distribution.
And become a full pledge linux user.



Its was the first time i uploaded a photo for forum use. Sorry about the size. Im quite surprise that the noob from your link did the same thing.
Get the camera and took the shot. and upload.


Thanks for the answer.

What medium are you using to install, i.e. downloaded and burned dvd, a live cd or something else?
If it is a dvd is it one you created?
The reason for the failure to boot looks like a bad install to me.

I downloaded the

Mandriva Linux One 2008 - Free Download (Recommended: contains all drivers and common plugins) from
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free
The file is
mandriva-linux-2008-one-KDE-cdrom-i586


I burned the iso image using UltraISO burned it on a DVD.

Then boot.

Any problem with this? Thanks for the help.

It is quite possible you have a less than perfect burn on your dvd.
If you have a fast connection to the web (as in broadband) it may be worth your while downloading the dvd iso. Lower the burn rate in your burning program so that you get a good dvd burn and re-install. If you take this option you will not need to re-partition your drives just use current partitions when you get to that part of the install.
For me that would be the better option, however if someone else disagrees or you do not wish to take that option then delay your install and see if a better answer comes along.

Only question I have is - Mandriva One is live CD. Did it work OK before trying an install?
I mean, if you put it into drive and reboot, do you end up getting normal desktop?

And I would still try to go with MandrivaOne (in fact I just installed it into three comps in my house during last few days, one of them ending actually up as fileserver - oh that lazyness). This way one can avoid hassle with nvidia drivers and all kinds of proprietary plugins that otherwise come with DVD.
But your current problem looks like bad burn to me as well so you should
1. check that iso you got is OK. If not, re-download.
2. burn another CD.
3. See if this boots into nice Mandriva desktop.
4. Install. As SilverSurfer mentioned, you can probably use partitions made during previous install.
5. Enjoy and come back with next questions

Thanks Wahur and SilverSurfer60...

I will check the ISO after I get back home tonight. Or download it. I got fast connection.

If I download, http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free has I think only CD iso with KDE available ..so it leave me no choice...But Ill try to download it again the Mandriva linux one 2008.


BTW, how would i install it again when their is already an installed Mandriva 2008 as you said I install it again. Would I install it in normal process..
Use custom partition. Select the drive and auto allocate?

Thank you for your time.

mar

I think the installer is the problem. You see, I been trying to install Mandriva One live CD.
I will download later the Mandriva Free, and try if it will work...

I think it will work this time......................................

thanks

I am trying to keep this as simple as possible K1n6 Paranoia so that it is understandable.
The Live CD is meant to be a bootable system and run from the CD without installing, however, there is the availability of installing via a desktop shortcut that is placed on the desktop when you boot up. This release is meant to be burnt to a CD.
If you want to commit to using Mandriva there is the 2008.0 release which is a DVD iso, therefore is meant to be burnt to a DVD. This one you install as an operating system. During the install you need to select to use the current Linux partitions. This selection will re-format only the operating system partition of the hard drive, in your case it should be /dev/sda5

There are major differences between the Live CD install and the system DVD install. The one difference that you will see is the choice of graphical desktop you want to install i.e. you can choose KDE or GNOME. Many more differences you will notice if you choose to go down this route.

With the Live CD install I believe you do not have the choice of graphical desktop, user set-up etc. It is much quicker as most of the choices are made for you depending on the hardware you have on your computer.

A word of caution here! The iso for the DVD (2008.0 Free) is a very large file, as it contains a complete release of the Mandriva package.

I sincerely hope I have not confused you even more, but I can think of no other way to describe all of the above. It's all about choice you see.

This is correct, The Live CD gives you KDE.

There is a live cd for gnome as well, because I have used both.
Edit: The Gnome cd is smaller.

hi,

Thanks guys for your answers...


i already downloaded it and check with md5sum and the files is ok. Very large file indeed.

when you are ask where to install the GRUB bootloader...should it be on sda5 or any drives will do. At my last installation i think I installed on
sda1...Should it be a problem..or ?

Thanks..

Stay with sda1 and you should be fine. See you on Mandriva.

Hi MUB and to those who patiently answered my questions,

Im very sorry. Linux wont still boot. I tried already every to the extent of my knowledge in everyones advise. This was my fourth failure. I still want to install linux in my laptop.

Here some snapshot from my installation in partitioning. I tried to partition it again after the 3rd failure.

sda1 where my xp

sda5..where my vista.. If you will notice..it skipped. I dont know why..


And the partitions after auto-allocate.

The result:



Hope to here more advise. May my snapshot will help analyze the failure.

Thanks

mark

From what I see Mark you have a rather small '/' partition and a rather large '/home' partition. The '/swap' is fine. What I suggest is use 'custom partition'. increase your '/' partition by 10 or 15 gigabyte, keep the same size for your swap and the use the remainder for '/home'. To do this you will need to clear the partitions already set for sda6 sda7 and sda8, then set the partitions as just mentioned and format those three partitions. That will clear the data and you can do a clean install on those partitions. I know it's a drag having to re-install but this way you know it will be a clean install.
Good Luck, we are always here if things don't go right.
Do not resize your windows partitions. Just leave them as they are.

SilverSurfer60 ,


Sorry. It did not work. I tried reinstalling it. But it seem the problem is on booting again.

Thank you.

Mark

When the grub screen appears, hit esc and then add
acpi=off
to the kernel boot commandline.
Does it boot properly now?

Are you on a 32bit or 64bit system?

i still did not try that acpi=off...i dnt know about it...i try this one

Im using AMD 64 athlon x2...i guess it is a 64 bit machine...am i right?

Thanks

You are quite correct, your system is 64bit although from reading posts it should still operate with little or no problems. Unfortunately that's where my knowledge of 64bit systems ends.
You could try Scarecrows suggestion, also you could try and boot from the Live CD without installing it. If the latter does not work then you have an incompatibility problem!!! Just what is beyond my experience.

when i try scarecrow advise....i hit esc...it will show 4 selection..i choose linux and hit c for commandline...

GRUB> acpi=off
error 27 unrecognized command


If there is still some suggestion


Thanks SilverSurfer60 and scarecrow....

is the linux /swap,/,/home are the same in all linux distribution.....?So that i will not partition anymore..

i read ubuntu need only two linux-swap ,/..
mandrive is 3....swap,/ and home...

Maybe i should consider other distribution..


mark

Hello there Mark, I only tried Ubuntu live CD and didn't like it so I cannot give any advice on that distribution. I have tried others but found Mandriva to my liking and have stuck with it. Hence my knowledge of other distributions is very limited.
Did you try my last suggestion? Booting from the live CD without installing. If you use this method you do not need to partition anything as the whole system is run from the CD and not your hard drive.
By all means try another distribution it is your computer and to me Linux is Linux. I'm just pleased to try and be of assistance

SilverSurfer60,

Mandriva Live CD has no problem in my laptop..It run smoothly but video card is not recognize...


Ubuntu wont work..Even installation CD...huh..

I am now downloading the OPEn SUSE..its AMD 64 compatible..maybe it will work now..

Thanks for your time..Ill just post if i have question.. Maybe in MUB , linux is linux also.

Nice to know you.

Mark

Hi, new to the forum. Hope it's OK to tag onto this thread, as I have similar problems to Mark.

The only difference is that I have two drives - a PATA with WinXP, and a SATA with the Mandriva Power Pack 2008 (free DVD from Linux Mag) installed.

I also get the frozen Mandriva splash screen when I choose Mandriva from the menu that appears. That menu also allows me to boot into Windows, and that works OK.

I partitioned the SATA drive during installation as follows -

SDA1 /. (ext3 10Gb)
SDA5 /swap (ext3 580Mb)
SDA6 /home (ext3 30Gb)
SDA7 and 8 - 10GB partitions for possible other distros (not concerned ATM with these)

If I disconnect the WinXP drive then boot up, I can get into Mandriva no problem from the menu.

Does this mean something in the WinXP boot files are are causing the problem?

Regards, Magwitch

Don't know if this will help, but here's the Grub boot info -



Regards, Magwitch

What happens if you try to boot one of the other two configurations? (first linux-nonfb, and if this does not work too, failsafe).

Hi scarecrow, thanks for replying.

When the Menu comes up, I have just the following choices -

Boot Mandriva Linux 2008

Boot Mandrive 2008 (safe mode)

Boot MS Windows

Going into safe mode, I get a script running, but it doesn't go into safe mode, just stops. At one point in the script it has -

Mounting local filesystems:
Mount : special device/dev/hdc1 doesn't exist
Mount : special device/dev/hdc5 doesn't exist FAILED

Magwitch

All OK now - just upgraded my mainboard and graphics card (was going to do it anyway), and I can now boot to Mandriva and XP seamlessly.

Cheers, Magwitch

hi.

Its been a awhile!

I just to let you know that I finally installed Mandriva successfully.
But I virtualized it using Virtualbox.

Thanks for those who helped me before. I always wanted to have a Mandriva on my own.

Here.




Thanks a lot.

Mark

p.s. Hi SilverSurfer60!