Sushubh Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 (edited) Downloading Mandrake 9.2 currently ;) I have a PC with a 40 Gig HDD. 20 GB is on XP NTFS 10 GB Fat 32 10 GB Fat 32 (or should I say 6 GB, considering the diff between a 1024 byte KB and 1000 byte KB) Now I want to install Mandrake 9.2 on the 6 GB partition without messing the XP that is on the 20 Gig partition. also want to keep the option open to reinstall XP in the near future without messing the Linux installation. What to do and what not to! How do I go about it... how to prevent XP from getting messed up... i believe if i use lilo or any other linux boot loader and later if i have to reinstall winxp, i will mess up the linux loader... some one suggested a boot disk. will booting in the linux from the floppy gives me the power to reinstall winxp any time? or still it will be a tough job to do? Edited January 25, 2004 by Sushubh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 Welcome to the board. First, if you do a search, you will find about 500 other posts that address this very issue. However, you're new here so I will answer some of the questions. To install Mandrake, the best thing to do is to delete the second FAT partition. This will create some blank space on the drive. Mandrake will recognize this and during the install, you can elect to use 'free space'. This will install Mandrake onto the empty (non-existent) partition. The install for Mandrake is actually easier then for XP. However, if you search the Mandrake website, you will find an installation manual in pdf format. I strongly suggest that you take a few minutes to view this just so that you know what is coming. There are lot of screenshots to show you what to expect. When you install Mandrake it will install LILO for you and setup all the dual boot stuff properly. This will allow you to boot into either XP or Mandrake. As for reinstalling either, it is true that when you reinstall XP it will over-write the boot record and make it so that you can not boot to Linux. The best way to deal with this is to create a boot floppy. This will allow you to insert the floppy, boot into Mandrake and reinstall LILO. Allowing you once again to dual boot. The way that you reinstall LILO is to simply login as root and at a command line type ' 'lilo' (without the single quotes) If you need to reinstall Mandrake for some reason, it will once again setup the dual boot for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 Actually, a better way to repair after a windex re-install is to boot with the first Mandrake install cd, hit F1, type "rescue", and use the rescue menu to reinstall lilo to the mbr. Linux will not mess up xp. Xp will, however, do its best to mess up any other operating system! Note my signature. Booting more than one os with lilo is never a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sushubh Posted January 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 lets hope my next question in this forum will be from a linux OS. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sushubh Posted January 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 now reading another post, i got confused. the partition i want to install linux is the E: drive on my windows as of now. whats the logic behind extended partition or stuff. i dont want linux to touch my XP partition i already have a partition to play with :| Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 This is the reason that I suggested you delete the partition you want to install Linux onto and leave it as empty unused space. When you start the install, you will be able to select where you want to install Mandrake. The idea of drive letters does not exist in Linux, so you are going to need to be able to recognize where on the drive the partition (or empty space) exists that you want to install Mandrake into. Then, just select that partition (or lack thereof) and install. Generally, if you have three existing partitions on your computer and you want to install into the third one, then it will be labeled hdc during the install. Don't worry about extended or primary partitions. When you install Mandrake, all you need to do is to pick the correct spot on the drive to install to and let Mandrake do all the work. Check the install manual to see exactly what I am talking about here. You have looked through the install manual, right?!?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sushubh Posted January 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 I am on mandrake 9.2 and everything seems to be working fine... now... GAIM is not installing :( Error: Some package requested cannot be installed: gaim-0.75-0mdk9.2.i586 (due to unsatisfied libnss3) do you agree ? What to do? Plus no players installed to play MP3! :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ticiajosep Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 To play mp3 install XMMS. The current version for Gaim in 9.2 is: Gaim-0.74-1.1.92mdk from Updates, install it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted January 25, 2004 Report Share Posted January 25, 2004 I am on mandrake 9.2 and everything seems to be working fine... Cool, Glad you got everything installed. Welcome to Mandrake Linux. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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