v0id Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 (edited) I just downloaded the first cd out of 3, i was told you only needed 1 to install mandrake. I have a few questions before i actually start, i want to install it on my laptop which has 1 hard drive with 3 partitions at the moment (10 gb for windows, 10 gb raw (for linux), and 40 gb raw (for both, i want to store downloads/files here etc.. and i wanted both linux and windows to be able to read/write from/to it)) the windows partition is NTFS, what file system should i make the linux and data partition? and should i use a program like partition magic? or the partitioner that comes with the installer? also, i read a few of the topics, and they usually mention having a swap drive, a home drive and a root drive, im not sure why/what this means.. could someone please elaborate? this is what i got figured out so far: (total hd space is ~60 gb) partition|filesystem|size|use -------------------------------- 1|NTFS|10gb|windows 2|???|8gb|linux root? 3|???|1gb|linux swap? (i have 512 mb of memory) 4|???|1gb|linux home?? 5|???|remaining space (40 gb or so)|data drive (shared between linux and windows) thanks in advance for any help Edited May 10, 2005 by v0id Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 (edited) The partitions can be created by Linux when you install. You don't need to worry about this before loading Linux. If you want to share data with Windows, then the partition for both OS's to see should be FAT32. Probably best to set this before you install Linux. For Linux, set the partition to EXT3. The reason for having /, Home and Swap, is that if you ever upgrade/rebuild, you can leave Home and therefore don't lose any data. You can partition even more than this if you really wanted to! For example /usr partition, and so on. The swap file is normally double your memory, but no more than 500MB. You won't use swap any more than this. Hope this helps! Edited May 9, 2005 by ianw1974 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v0id Posted May 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 from what i can tell: partition|filesystem|size|use -------------------------------- 1|NTFS|10gb|windows 2|ext3|8gb|linux install 3|ext3|512mb|linux swap 4|ext3|1gb|linux home 5|fat32|40gb|data drive (shared between linux and windows) i thought fat32 had a maximum size of 32gb? and should i format the data drive in the mandrake install? or using fdisk/windows partitioner? btw, a question about the home partition.. does it ONLY store my personal files? or is it like a copy of the installation? (like a backup).. and if i was to update mandrake, it would only replace the install partition, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 (edited) Home just stores what you want to put there. It's format is: /home/username (whatever you set your username as). If you have additional users, they will appear here too. FAT32 does have a limit yes, and although you can create larger, it's prob not a good idea. With Linux, you cannot write to NTFS partitions without special apps, although this is likely to cause data integrity problems. You can always create more than one partition to spread how the FAT32 data is, instead of making the biggest single partition. Create as many as you like from the 40GB shared for Linux/Windows, format with Windows prior to installing Linux. Edited May 9, 2005 by ianw1974 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 If you ever want to do anything with your linux partitions with partition magic, you must use partition magic to make them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v0id Posted May 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 so this should work: i unpartition everything except for my windows xp partition using the windows partitioner, i make 2 partitions where i store my data (fat32), lets say.. data and backup or sumin.. and i make 3 linux partitions (swap/install/home) in the actual installation part? btw, do i need all 3 cds? i have the first 2, currently downloading the last 1.. im not sure if id need them all, im mainly going to use mandrake as a developing environment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v0id Posted May 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 a side-question: how much space is optimal for the home and install partitions? i currently set them at 1 gb and 8.5gb respectively... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 Yep, that's how you'll do the partitions. The FAT32 one with Windows, the rest with the installer. The Home drive is where you're likely to hold data, so if you think you'll store 1GB there, then it's OK to size as that. Then anything else you can drop in the FAT32 partition later. The bigger the root drive, the more space you have for installing any apps in. I personally haven't attempted with only 1CD, I used all 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solarian Posted May 9, 2005 Report Share Posted May 9, 2005 To put it in other way /home is like your users folder in Windows, only it's a seperate partition, i.e., the place where in window all MyMusic, MyDocuments, MyPictures, etc, goes p.s. I advice having all 3 cd's. You won't have many apps and features without those (especially the 2nd) cds. On the 2nd cd KDE sits (I think) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v0id Posted May 10, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 thanks for the help guys, it installed perfectly, now to fix that usb mount error (see my other topic) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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