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New dual boot install


xboxboy
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Hi all,

I have an Acer Aspire One. I have the winblows version. It has, supposively, the 120gb conventional hard disk. I have use of around 100gb due to the stupid recovery partition. I already have used 40gb of the drive. Alot of that data is not windows exclusive so I can move it off of there should I need to.

 

I intend to dual boot, as there are a couple of programs that are exclusively windows :mellow:

 

I was thinking of a separate /home partition should I change distros.

 

So I think I need a / partition, /home partition and a /swap partition.

 

Whats the current rule of thumb with /swap partitions? This aspire has 1gb ram.

I was thinking 10-15gb for / partition

Spread the remaining over the windows partition and the /home partition.

 

I have currently got Easy Peasy running off a usb drive, and it is sooo much more impressive speedwise than xp, I can hardly believe it. These little machines rock with a decent OS :D

 

Whats everyones view of the above suggestions regarding partitions?

 

And does anyone know if I am able to copy off the recovery partition before I install? Just to be safe? I am still such a newb when it comes to stuff like that.

 

Thanks everyone.

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You have 100GB of the disk used by a Recovery Partition? That can't be right, that only leaves you with 40GB of physical disk spare for your system to use.

 

Otherwise that's a seriously wasteful recovery partition and I would delete it from my system if that was the case. You should find a tool within Windows that allows you to create CD/DVD sets for your recovery partition. And I simply cannot believe it can be 100GB. I'm hoping it was a typo, and that it's just 10GB!! :)

 

For your partitioning, here's my system:

 

root@esprit:/home/ian# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x02300e71

  Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         124      995998+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *         125        2614    20000925   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            2615       19457   135291397+  83  Linux

 

note, no I don't have Windows - it's pure Linux, no recovery partition, nothing :)

 

I have 1GB swap partition (sda1), I have 20GB / (sda2), and the rest is allocated to sda3 as /home (127GB). Windows on your machine will be sda1, so you'll be setting up partitions after this for swap, / and /home.

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You have 100GB of the disk used by a Recovery Partition? That can't be right, that only leaves you with 40GB of physical disk spare for your system to use.

No, that's not what he said:

 

...It has, supposively, the 120gb conventional hard disk. I have use of around 100gb due to the stupid recovery partition. I already have used 40gb of the drive. Alot of that data is not windows exclusive so I can move it off of there should I need to...

 

I believe he said that he can use 100gb out of the 120gb (means the recovery system uses around 20gb) and he has already made use of 40gb with some data.

 

So, he has left 60gb, if I understood correctly.

 

I'd use it exactly how Ian says:

20gb for /

1gb for /swap

rest for /home

Edited by dude67
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I can hint biting the bullet, and creating a dualboot system where the physical windoze installation can also be used as a virtual machine.

Just follow the guide here:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9697

It works well for me at three different machines. The VM performance is not stellar, but pretty much acceptable, if your laptop has some nuts (e.g dualcore CPU, 2+ GB of RAM).

VM performance with VMWare is certainly better, but you have to go the other way round (that is first installing windows natively, not in VM, without any drivers, and only then creating the VM within Linux). Dealing with the bootlader in VMware is trickier than in VirtualBox, but quite manageable.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks all. So I was on the right track.

 

Can any one guide me in backing up the recovery partion?

 

I believe that it is /dev/sda1. Its listed as a fat32 file system, labeled PQSERVICE, 4.88 GiB. I dont believe it's mounted.

 

I have an external usb hard disk I could back it up to, as the little acer doesn't have a cd/dvd drive.

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20GB is normally a waste for / . 10-12GB (like you thought yourself too) is more appropiate, I guess with a very large disk it doesn't matter but with 120GB it might be better not to waste 8-10GB.

Edited by tux99
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20GB is normally a waste for / . 10-12GB (like you thought yourself too) is more appropiate, I guess with a very large disk it doesn't matter but with 120GB it might be better not to waste 8-10GB.

 

With the easy peasy running off a 4gb stick, 20gb does seem excessive.

 

How difficult would it be to link my acer laptop running easy peasy to my main box running mandriva to burn a dvd copy of the recovery partition? I've never tried such a messy task.

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You can do it very easy. From the machine with the recovery partition, type this:

 

dd if=/dev/sda1 | ssh username@mandriva "dd of=/home/username/recovery.iso"

 

this assumes that:

 

/dev/sda1 = your recovery partition on your acer machine

username = the user you want to use on your system to connect via SSH

mandriva = ip address of the mandriva machine so you can connect over ssh

 

recovery.iso will be stored in /home/username (of course replace where appropriate with your username like when you used to connect over ssh). Of course, means you have to be running some version of Linux on your acer machine, but doesn't have to be installed. It can be a Live CD.

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Because you're doing it over SSH, the connection is encrypted, and so the creation of the ISO on the remote machine (mandriva) will take some time depending on how big the recovery partition is. I've done this once already for a 20GB partition, and this took about 50 minutes across my network. So you'll have to run it and leave it, but remember, the command I listed above, is ran from the machine where the recovery partition exists, and it dumps it over SSH (network) to your Mandriva machine.

 

If you're unsure, post here, and we'll help with any further details. You don't need to read up as such on SSH, because SSH is just a secure shell giving us remote access to a machine to run various commands and/or administer the machine from a console window.

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I'm not sure what model you have, mine is the 1000HD (no web cam), and personally I'd scrap the restore partition.

 

If you format ext3 it's not going to do you any good anyway, the windows fdisk will hit it and throw up, meaning that it probably WONT reinstall your XP anyway.

 

Your best bet is get an old XP cd or ISO and just keep it in a safe place.

 

If your XP partition dies, borrow an external cd and reinstall xp the way YOU want.

 

These are great netbooks, but definately NOT powerhouses.

 

I loaded 2009.1 from a USB stick I had, tool less than 30 minutes, including paritioning.

 

My XP has 40GB of C and then MDV has a 1GB swap / has 20GB and /home has the rest.

 

but thats just me.

 

I also have an 8GB sd in the slot as secondary data backup.

 

my 2.7896367754 cts

 

j

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Ok, so I had to supply a password for root, then I could su to root.

 

I run the appropriate command (I think) and I get: connection timed out

 

Networks...argh

 

Edit: I cannot ping the pc where the file is to be saved..

 

Acer IP address is 192.168.1.4, mandriva box is 192.168.1.3, they are connected through a router. both are connected ok, and can access the net through router.

 

When I run from the acer: ping 192.168.1.3 nothing happens.

When I run from the mandriva box: ping 192.168.1.4 I get:

 

64 bytes from 192.168.1.4: icmp_seq=1 ttel=64 time 0.206

 

obviously the icmp_seq=number rises by one everytime it runs.

 

Not sure where to go from here.

Edited by xboxboy
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