davidw55 Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 OK, I have to admit I am a complete newbie to Linux (although the command line syntax looks a lot like DOS that I have used since the '80s :) ). I used to love running OS/2 (for the stability) and I am hoping Linux can be MY new OS/2 so to speak. I'm really tired of Windows, and have vowed not to run XP for several reasons. I went ahead and ordered a standard 9.1 for $5.99 to avoid the hassle of creating my own, especially since it's likely I would do something wrong in the process. I have a Dell Dimension 8100 1.4Ghz, 256MB RAM, with a 60GB HD, of which about 22 is currently used. I also have an external 120GB USB that I use for doing Ghost backups and storing other offline data. I have read several of the topics in the forum and while I have seen a few that had similarities to my situation, I didn't really see one that addressed my questions, so here goes. First, (not thinking) I went to install 9.1 on my 60GB drive with WindowsME, and after I created a boot disk, and started the install, by the time I got to the Packages selection, I didn't realize that Mandrake had already created a Linux partition and swap partition. Only problem was the Linux partition was only 248 MB in size! That's not even enough to run Knome or KDE, soooo, I killed the install and deleted the two partitions. It had been awhile since I had done fdisk type stuff so I decided I would do a full Ghost backup to my 120 GB drive before going any further. I also decided I would read the help, faqs, etc. on the forun before doing anything else. I would like to install 9.1 on my 60 GB drive and have it co-exist with the current ME installation, but I have seen several threads that worried me about doing something like that. I know Windows should not complain since it is already installed, etc. and I know Mandrake can exist anywhere on the disk, but I am not sure if it is safe to use something like fdisk to resize my current primary partition (i.e. reduce it from the whole disk to around 40 GB, leaving 20 GB for Linux on another partition). I have also seen threads that say you should have dedicated partitions for various directories off of the root in Linux. Is this necessary? Keep in mind, I am not going to be doing anything terribly serious with Linux right now. I just want to get it installed and use it regularly for Internet, Office applications, etc. to eval. it and see if I should stay with it. I have run scandisk and Norton SD on the drive so all of the data existing on the Primary partition should now be contiguous. Will resizing my primary to free up space for Linux trash my current ME install? Do I need to get the latest copy of Partition Magic to do this safely, or something like the Ranish Manager? I downloaded the Ranish program, but am not sure if that is the route I need to go. Sorry for the long (1st) post, but if anyone has wisdom on what my next steps should be, I would greatly appreciate it. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 I would like to install 9.1 on my 60 GB drive and have it co-exist with the current ME installation, but I have seen several threads that worried me about doing something like that. I know Windows should not complain since it is already installed, etc. and I know Mandrake can exist anywhere on the disk, but I am not sure if it is safe to use something like fdisk to resize my current primary partition (i.e. reduce it from the whole disk to around 40 GB, leaving 20 GB for Linux on another partition). I would personally avoid fdisk unless you know what you are doing. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable in the ways of linux and find it to be a terribly convoluted program (even though I have used it succesfully). I'd only recommend using fdisk is you are comfortable with it (and it seems you are not) so instead I'd say that you should go with cfdisk which is a much simpler program to use. ::However:: having said all that I would be remiss if i didn't point out that mandrake has its own GUI program for resizing partitions. I would ::highly:: recommend you use this program. During the installation you're asked if you want to partition, etc, you can choose to do an advanced setup and then delete (and resize) to your heart's content. I have also seen threads that say you should have dedicated partitions for various directories off of the root in Linux. Is this necessary? Necessary, no. Recommended, yes. At the very least I would recommend you having a separate partition for you /home) or anything of that ilk. Will resizing my primary to free up space for Linux trash my current ME install? If your windows partion uses all of the 60 gb you will need to resize. I haven't tried this (always had partition magic in some way, shape or form) but I've heard that the mdk tool resizes fat32 partitions well. In case something does go wrong i'd think it highly unlikely that you wouldn't be able to at least boot into windows. Do I need to get the latest copy of Partition Magic to do this safely, or something like the Ranish Manager? I downloaded the Ranish program, but am not sure if that is the route I need to go. Unless you have winxp (which you said you've avoided) you don't need the latest copy of partition magic. I haven't used ranish so i don't know how to advise you on that particular program. i however would recommend partition magic if you have it, the mdk resizer if you don't, then ranish cause i don't know much about it. Another thing, when resizing for linux you may want to us maybe 5 gb for / which should leave you with ~12 gb for windows. that's a lot of space. if scandisk went well (it shows you where stuff is graphically) your data should be pretty far away from the free space all nicely bunched together and contiguous. Of course, this is windows and that's a big if. But there always Ghost, right ? :wink: Sorry for the long (1st) post, but if anyone has wisdom on what my next steps should be, I would greatly appreciate it. David eh, i ramble too. Like that website btw :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted April 14, 2003 Report Share Posted April 14, 2003 I second illogic-al (you'll understand if you frequent that board a lot davidw55). However, I would forget about Partition Magic or the other one (Rawshsomething) and use the build-in tool. Pop-in the Mandrake cd and at the partition step, choose 'Advanced Partitionning' (or something like that). I don't remember the exact name of it but there is 4 choices. Select the last one... this will bring you to DiskDrake (a nice Graphical User Interface to fdisk). You'll be able to delete the current linux partition and swap, resize your Windows partition and create new ones (Linux partion and swap). Don't forget to defrag before that! MOttS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 15, 2003 Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 I second illogic-al (you'll understand if you frequent that board a lot davidw55). MOttS it's "if you frequent this board a lot" speak english much? :: :: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MottS Posted April 15, 2003 Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 it's "if you frequent this board a lot" If you want..... Anyway.. did you understand? speak english much? :: :: Not much since I graduated from McGill. I work in French in a Government society (Hydro-Quebec). So I don't speak english at all those days . I'm looking forward for a master degree at the same Univ. That might help me if I convince myself.. I'M SO LAZY! MOttS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest fubar::chi Posted April 15, 2003 Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 i think we just hijacked this thread into offtopic land so I'll just finish it's demise Anyways, i'll teach you english if you teach me french :wink: Like you i'm a bit rusty since i'm out of practice (actually rustier since I can't even write it that well) :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidw55 Posted April 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 I would personally avoid fdisk unless you know what you are doing. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable in the ways of linux and find it to be a terribly convoluted program (even though I have used it succesfully). I'd only recommend using fdisk is you are comfortable with it (and it seems you are not) so instead I'd say that you should go with cfdisk which is a much simpler program to use. I have used it successfully as well, just been a while since I have done fairly low level stuff, and didn't know if DOS fdisk would even be able to create partitions that Linux would recognize, but now I know that it will. ::However:: having said all that I would be remiss if i didn't point out that mandrake has its own GUI program for resizing partitions. I would ::highly:: recommend you use this program. During the installation you're asked if you want to partition, etc, you can choose to do an advanced setup and then delete (and resize) to your heart's content. I'm hoping that since I did a scandisk and speedisk to get all my data nice and neatly contiguous that when I let the Mandrake util. resize my DOS partition that I won't loose anything :roll: Oh well, I do have the Ghost backup, etc. if anything goes wrong... Necessary, no. Recommended, yes. At the very least I would recommend you having a separate partition for you /home Thanks for the tip. Guess I'll let it have two partitions for home and root. If your windows partion uses all of the 60 gb you will need to resize. I haven't tried this (always had partition magic in some way, shape or form) but I've heard that the mdk tool resizes fat32 partitions well. In case something does go wrong i'd think it highly unlikely that you wouldn't be able to at least boot into windows. Since all I had on the drive was dos windows yes it was all allocated, don't know how Mandrake came up with 248MB for a linux partition though, seems kind of stupid the way it tried to go about it. I'm just going to go ahead and take my chances with the Mandrake util. and see how it works. Another thing, when resizing for linux you may want to us maybe 5 gb for / Sounds good to me. I'll let you know how it works out... Like that website btw :) Thanks, I've just been playing around more with it lately and redesigning it to be easier to navigate. Trying to get more into PHP, etc. until I can find a new position (laid off a few months ago). Thanks for the tips guys, and how dare you hijack my thread!!! You know how seriously we take security these days... Just kidding David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidw55 Posted April 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 Well, Great News, sort of... I went and installed and used the expert mode under partitioning and resized my dos/win partition down to 46 GB and then did an autoallocate for linux of the free space. Then I just adjusted a bit on root, home, and swap sizes and everything went fine with the install. After playing around in 9.1 for awhile and setting up my desktop, I rebooted and chose windows (not knowing if it preserved the partition properly) but ME started just fine and everything is where it should be!!! I was so relieved, since we still need ME for a few things right now. I played around with mozzila, etc. and found out it configured my internet automatically, which was nice, since I am running a cable modem. Now for the "sort of" part. I did a dumb thing and changed the mouse in control center from ps/2 to ms-intellimouse and after I rebooted back into Linux no mouse. Can you tell this dumb newbie how to get my mouse configured back to ps/2 again (since control center doesn't seem to work from the keyboard). I am assuming I will have to enter a command line type of function to get it fixed. The other thing is I have found that Lexmark sucks for Linux support. You would think with what IBM is doing with supporting Linux that their printers would too... I am going to try to find another Lexmark in one of the print server options that my X63 can mimic, so we'll see. Is going to be a real bummer if I can't use at least the print part of the all-in-one under Linux Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks... David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest anon Posted April 15, 2003 Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 From a console or terminal, type mcc for the control centre. Some people type drakconf either will work.Or you can type mousedrake to config your mouse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Posted April 15, 2003 Report Share Posted April 15, 2003 Although I've not a lexmark..did you try the extra printer-drivers....There are some extra printer-driver rpm-packages(I thought). Try if those won't fix your problem.... Else..which lexmark printer do you have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidw55 Posted April 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2003 From a console or terminal, type mcc for the control centre. Some people type drakconf either will work.Or you can type mousedrake to config your mouse. Thanks, after searching I found another post that provided detailed instructions on how to boot to command line mode and enter the text version of mousedrake or whatever it was and got the mouse working again... David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidw55 Posted April 22, 2003 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2003 Although I've not a lexmark..did you try the extra printer-drivers....There are some extra printer-driver rpm-packages(I thought). Try if those won't fix your problem.... Else..which lexmark printer do you have? I haven't been able to find a driver anywhere for my Lexmark X63 (it's an all in one printer, scanner, copier, fax). I went to Lexmarks support site and they have NO linux driver available. However, I figured it used the same printer engine as other Lexmarks, so I looked on the cartridge box and noticed that it was the same for the Z51 - Z53, so I setup the printer as a Z53 and it seems to be able to mimic a Z53 well enough to at least print from the applications that I have tried (so far). Doubt I will be able to take advantage of the other functions of the device under Linux though :( :( David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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