Guest gr1978 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 okay while im waiting for mandrake 9 to download, im trying to read everything i can about installing. my very first install of linux. i have XP on an 80 gig HDD and i have a 40 gig HDD just sitting in my case i just have the paging file on it. im going to move the paging file back on to the 80 and just format and partition the 40 into 2 partitions...one for the page file again(maybe 10 gigs give or take) and the rest for linux. ive read i should just make the "linux" partition FAT32. is this correct? hopefully i wont encounter any problems tonight doing things this way? so im not going to have to resize any partitions or anything...since mandrake and xp are on completely different drives and partitions. i have something i found saying use GRUB to dual boot or should i use LILO? im rather confused...i guess when i get into it i hopefully can figure it out and not screw anything up... my system specs...i have a turtle beach santa cruz, gainward geforce2 Ti450 and 512 megs pc133 crucial ram on an abit kt7a board. and those two hard drives a lite on cd burner and a lite on dvd rom...will these pieces of hardware work? or should i just not waste my time. any thoughts/comments are greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 As far as I can tell, all the hardware should work. (Not completely sure of the sound card though) As for partitioning, I would place Mandrake on the entire second partition instead of just part of it. But that is your call. You should format the partition as either ext2, ext3, or my recommendation reiserfs. None of these have anything to do with fat32. This means that if you want to share data between linux and an ntfs drive, you will need to create an fat32 partition as both OSs can read this filesystem. As for the bootloader, I use LILO and have never had any problems with it recognizing and properly configuring the dual boot. However, I have heard good things about grub as well. Before you do an install, make sure you have an emergency rescue disk created for XP in case something goes wrong. Good Luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gr1978 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 thank you sir so i should use the partitioning utility on the mandrake disc to format as ext2 or ext3? what are the differences b/w those two? i was just going to use the data lifeguard tools disc that came with my hdd. i dont really need to share files b/w the two since i still have 36 gigs free on the 80. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Since you are new to this, I suggest this.. 1. Move page back to first drive for now. 2. Boot off Mandrake CD1 and select expert install. 3. Go through a few install screens and eventually you will see partitioning. 4. Click on the second drive (either hdb or hdd). It's a tab. 5. Click auto-configure button and select /usr option. This will automatically make your linux partitions for you. 6. Click on each partition and write down on paper name size mount point 7. Click CLEAR. This will clear the partition table. 8. Start with the first partition (/ boot). Click on Journaled File System tab. Select ReiserFS as your file system. This is a very good file system that handles crashes and is being continuously updated by developers. Set the partition size. Set the mount point (type it in). Click on Preferences. Select Primary. This will be a primary partition. All other partitions created will be extended (avoid maxing out at 4 primary partitions). 9. Now do the swap partition. Click on the swap file system tab. Go with the default size. Click on Preferences and select Extended (just extended, not extended-some number). 10. Create the /usr and /home partitions in the same fashion as extended reiserfs file systems. 11. Skip making FAT32 file systems for now. Do it later. Leave yourself room though. 12. Click DONE and continue with install. 13. When you get to the lilo install screen, just install to hda. It will do fine. I recommend you use at least the following partition sizes. / - 600 meg /swap - use default /usr - 3-4 gig /home 2-4 gig After you have completed the install, start playing with linux. Do this for a week. During this time, you may decide to redo the install, make changes what not. When you have settled down and have what you want, then make your fat32 (called vfat in linux) partitions. Warning!! Do not use windows disk manager or fdisk for a hard drive with linux partitions. It will go bye bye :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Ext2 is the native filesystem for Linux. Ext3 and ReiserFS are both journaling filesystems. I strongly suggest setting up Mandrake with a journaling filesystem -- either ext3 or reiserfs. The reason for this is that if the power to computer is suddenly cut, etx2 will probably not survive, whereas the journaling filesystems will recover very well. They add a lot more security to your linux installation. In terms of partitioning, yea, just use the tools provided on the Mandrake install disks and format the partitions you will be using as eithe ext3 or reiserfs. You may be surprised how many files you may want to share. If you have any mp3 files on XP, you will need an FAT32 partition in order to access them. (a little aside) Strong Suggestion: make sure that you check the md5sums of the ISOs before burning them. This ensure that you do not get corrupted downloads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gr1978 Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 thank you guys so very much. i feel much more comfortable about this process given your replies. i figured i should try it out having a hdd just sitting in the case not doing much of anything. im primarily just doing it to get faster seti@home or d2ol times hopefully...hehehe 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest makra Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Hi, what is the default dile system when installing mdk9.0 ? Is it the native ? >Ext3 and ReiserFS are both journaling filesystems. What is the difference between both file systems ? makra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest anon Posted December 7, 2002 Report Share Posted December 7, 2002 Don't rem what the default file system is, i always do expert install The difference between Ext3 and ReiserFS, is Ext3 is like Ext2 but with a journaling filesystem, an upgrade or improvement to Ext2. Whereas, ReiserFS is a true journaling file system , and is considered to be far superior to Ext3. Some people will argue this, but I believe most Mandrake users including myself, prefer ReiserFS. Here is their home page for more tech info: http://www.namesys.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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