Hello,

Dlegend asked me privately how to do the Fedora / XP installation. He has a 80 GB hard drive, and wants both systems on one hard drive.

There are two ways to do this: Move the partitions with a utility such as Partition Magic, or re-partition the hard drive from scratch, and install from scratch. The goal is to prevent XP from eating the entire 80 GB in one chunk. Either case, you NEED to backup data before you get any desire of moving ahead. What would I do? Re-install XP from scratch and define the partitions there.

Just some notes:

* XP needs to be installed first. If you do Fedora first, and then XP, Microsoft will eat your boot setup, and you will have troubles accessing your Linux side. XP First.

* While setting up XP, there is a place to define your partition size. In this case, make one partition 40 GB, and leave the rest undefined. Or, if you are like me, you make a C: for system, a D: for Applications and an E: for Data. However you do it, define your hard drive so that you have a good chunk available for linux (but undefined as far as XP is concerned).

* If you want a common XP / Linux partion, you can make one. Format it FAT32 though. Non-Windoze operating systems do not like NTFS. Reading modules are available, but I am not aware of certified read/write NTFS modules for Linux. They might be there... I dunno.

* Install XP

* Download the Fedora .iso disks and burn them to CD-ROM. I think they are 3 or 4. You do not need the SRPM disks.

* Boot with Fedora Disk 1. Setup a CUSTOM machine, and manually partition the drive with Disk Druid. LEAVE THE BOOT PARTITION and XP Partitions alone. Only work with the "undefined partitions". Suggestions for 40 GB of space:

/ (root) : 1 GB
swap: 2x installed RAM
/usr: At Least 10 GB (tradition has compiled stuff land in /usr/local)
/home: 5 GB
/var: 1 GB
/tmp 1 GB
/backup 10 GB

If you want to get fancy, you can make other partitions, such as a /internet for setting up a webserver, or a /backup for a dedicated backup space. If you want to get SERIOUS with linux, you will develop scripts to backup data files to another location, and from there, can move them to CD-ROM or tape or whatnot.

Also with Custom, you will get a chance to select what packages to install. Since you have a lot of space, you can select "install everything" found on the bottom of the screen. If you want to be more restrained, be sure to install the development tools. You will find both Command Line tools, and X-windows based tools for debugging and the like. Be sure to install XWindows if you so add the other materials.

* GRUB is going to ask how to setup your boot. You are going to need the menu to choose XP or Linux.

* As it is getting late, if you have any specific question, please create a new thread in the Linux forum. That is the best place; I simply placed this information here as we have a few people interested in building a machine.

Enjoy!

Christian

P.S. The install and mastering of Linux will not be a rapid, overnight thing. It will take some time, but be very well worth it.

You could do a ton worse than ubuntu as your first distro. Actually, I'd recommend it over Mandrake or Fedora (RH isn't an option unless you want to purchase it...)

Its a nice clean install. The install works better than the live discs. It has an interesting name.

That being said, linux distros are a personal thing (like cars, gloves whatever...) you have to find one that fits you.

I'm a Slacker but that doesn't mean everyone else is. I like tweaking the system and the way slackware lays things out makes sense to me....

Try a bunch of them. Don't be afraid to fsck up your system. Have fun.

Linux is great fun, check out distrowatch to see which are popular and why...

I am hooked on Mepis which is about #3 on the list of 100+
But then I also really like Knoppix which is way down the list...

I saw where for $10 - $15 you could get a stack of different distrobutions...
You should check into it... The variety will astound you...

Sort of like car shopping... drive a bunch and pick the one that feels the best for what you do... And in this case... Take it home for FREE....

You are right, the great thing about linux is you can try almost every distro for free.

If you find one you like and you can afford to make a donation, even a small one, or buy some swag from their storefront, please support the people who have brought this so far so fast.

If you are a IT manager and you can slip a box copy of linux into a purchase request along with some books or software every now and again, DO IT!

If you can't afford to help financially you can spread the word, when you get a new live cd, give away your old one, find one you really like and burn a few to pass around the office.

People should know that a live cd is the very best way to protect your computer when you go to a ... questionable .... website (no Windows Media Player movies, but mpegs usually work!) I am still looking for a live CD designed for that purpose but I haven't found one yet..... Anyone?

Thank you all for the helpful information.

Last night was tons of fun :mad: :mad:

I decided to try out partition commander, that worked wonders let me tell ya.
After 3 attempts my 80 GB hard was 39 GB and I had no new drives and missing a huge chunk of my HD????? But system commander (came with partition commander) would show 3 Linux os's.
Anyway long story short around 2am I found what I had done wrong and now I have an L: The new drive is 26 GB. I didn't mess around with system commander anymore last night, but if anyone is familiar with system commander am I good to go? Or will I have to reinstall xp then add Linux? And since I created the partition using windows and not partition commander will I have a problem trying to use SC to boot to Linux?

“Being a noob is not fun "

Also, non windows os dont like NFTS will it be a problem to reformat the L drive to FAT32, while leaving my C drive NFTS, will this cause a conflict and is it just as simple as formatting the drive?

Thanks,

Shawn

The partitions can be formatted seperately, this should not cause you a problem

SE

Windows operating systems and Windows/DOS-only partitioning utilities cannot not recognize partitions which have been formatted as non-Microsoft (FAT, FAT32, NTFS) partitions; this includes Linux filesystems (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, etc.). You will not be able to see/access your Linux partitions under Windows without installing third-party software (let's hold off on that for now though).


Linux doesn't use the same drive-naming convention that Windows does (A:, B:, C:, L:, etc.), so I'm assuming the L: partition you created was a Win/DOS partition. What other drive and partition labels do you see from inside Windows?


System Commander is capable of creating and recognizing Linux-formatted partitions. How does SC report each of your individual partitions to be partitioned?


Actually, many of us who have been using Linux for a number of years would advise that you use the Linux bootloader "GRUB" as your bootmanager (as kc0arf suggested in his post). If Windows is already installed when you install Linux, the Linux installation process should detect the existing Win partitionand automatically set up a GRUB dual-boot menu for you.