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From: JAG CHAN on 5 Apr 2008 02:29

My nephew, who is Windows XP user, now wants to switch over to Linux.

He is thinking of installing either Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.

He is also upgrading his HDD from present 40GB to 160GB.

However before completly switching over to Linux he wants to try out
Linux by dual booting it with Windows XP, which he is using at present.

How should he go about it?

That is how should he partition his HDD for Linux installation.

Does Linux install in NTFS format or he will have to make partion of FAT
32 ?

In general any help regarding how he should go about it will be of great
help to us.

Thanks.









From: Bit Twister on 5 Apr 2008 03:13
On 05 Apr 2008 06:29:14 GMT, JAG CHAN wrote:
>
> My nephew, who is Windows XP user, now wants to switch over to Linux.
>
> He is thinking of installing either Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.
>
> He is also upgrading his HDD from present 40GB to 160GB.

With that much extra space he can create a 512+ megabyte swap
partition and about a 12 gigabyte partition for each distribution he
wishes to play with.


> However before completly switching over to Linux he wants to try out
> Linux by dual booting it with Windows XP, which he is using at present.
>
> How should he go about it?

I usually pick custom/manual during the partition phase, create/format
a partition, set it / and continue with the install.


> That is how should he partition his HDD for Linux installation.

Usually a chili/apple pie recipe question. :)
Do bookmark the following large FAQ search engine url.
http://groups.google.com/advanced_search

You usually create a swap partition 512 megabytes or the size of
memory whichever is larger.
You then create a root partition called / around 12 gigabytes.
and install the distribution there.


> Does Linux install in NTFS format or he will have to make partion of FAT
> 32 ?

None of the above. install normally formats it as ext3.


> In general any help regarding how he should go about it will be of great
> help to us.

I can recommend creating a rescue cd from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

Use it to create an extended partition out of the free space on the new
drive. Then create the swap and / partition inside extended partition.
During install of the distribution, you pick custom/manual during
partition phase, select root (/) partition and away you go.

I keep several ~12 gig partitions for installing new releases and
playing with other distributions.

Snippet from my boot menu with comments
title linux <------ current install
title 2008_1_rc2 <------ Release candidate 2 for Mandriva Linux (32 bit)
title 2008_0 <------ Production Mandriva Linux
title 2007_1 <------ Previous Production Mandriva Linux
title pclinuxos <------ PCLinuxOS
title Ubuntu 7.10 <------ Ubuntu release 7.10
title hotbu <------ Hot backup of current release
title fc8 <------ Fedora Core Release 8
title 2008.1_64 <------ 64 bit rc1 Mandriva Linux
title fedora_iso <------ Boots fedora iso from disk instead of cdrom
title XP_Home <------ Initial OS install
title XP_Rescue <------ rescue partition for XP
From: JAG CHAN on 5 Apr 2008 03:47
Bit Twister <BitTwister(a)mouse-potato.com> wrote in
news:slrnfve9ki.6vu.BitTwister(a)wm81.home.test:

> On 05 Apr 2008 06:29:14 GMT, JAG CHAN wrote:
>>
>> My nephew, who is Windows XP user, now wants to switch over to Linux.
>>
>> He is thinking of installing either Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.
>>
>> He is also upgrading his HDD from present 40GB to 160GB.
>
> With that much extra space he can create a 512+ megabyte swap
> partition and about a 12 gigabyte partition for each distribution he
> wishes to play with.
>
>
>> However before completly switching over to Linux he wants to try out
>> Linux by dual booting it with Windows XP, which he is using at
>> present.
>>
>> How should he go about it?
>
> I usually pick custom/manual during the partition phase, create/format
> a partition, set it / and continue with the install.
>
>
>> That is how should he partition his HDD for Linux installation.
>
> Usually a chili/apple pie recipe question. :)
> Do bookmark the following large FAQ search engine url.
> http://groups.google.com/advanced_search
>
> You usually create a swap partition 512 megabytes or the size of
> memory whichever is larger.
> You then create a root partition called / around 12 gigabytes.
> and install the distribution there.
>
>
>> Does Linux install in NTFS format or he will have to make partion of
>> FAT 32 ?
>
> None of the above. install normally formats it as ext3.
>
>
>> In general any help regarding how he should go about it will be of
>> great help to us.
>
> I can recommend creating a rescue cd from
> http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id
> =173828
>
> Use it to create an extended partition out of the free space on the
> new drive. Then create the swap and / partition inside extended
> partition. During install of the distribution, you pick custom/manual
> during partition phase, select root (/) partition and away you go.
>
> I keep several ~12 gig partitions for installing new releases and
> playing with other distributions.
>
> Snippet from my boot menu with comments
> title linux <------ current install
> title 2008_1_rc2 <------ Release candidate 2 for Mandriva Linux
> (32 bit) title 2008_0 <------ Production Mandriva Linux
> title 2007_1 <------ Previous Production Mandriva Linux
> title pclinuxos <------ PCLinuxOS
> title Ubuntu 7.10 <------ Ubuntu release 7.10
> title hotbu <------ Hot backup of current release
> title fc8 <------ Fedora Core Release 8
> title 2008.1_64 <------ 64 bit rc1 Mandriva Linux
> title fedora_iso <------ Boots fedora iso from disk instead of
> cdrom title XP_Home <------ Initial OS install
> title XP_Rescue <------ rescue partition for XP
>


Thanks for your help.

Regards.
From: Nico Kadel-Garcia on 5 Apr 2008 07:26
JAG CHAN wrote:
> My nephew, who is Windows XP user, now wants to switch over to Linux.
>
> He is thinking of installing either Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS.
>
> He is also upgrading his HDD from present 40GB to 160GB.
>
> However before completly switching over to Linux he wants to try out
> Linux by dual booting it with Windows XP, which he is using at present.
>
> How should he go about it?
>
> That is how should he partition his HDD for Linux installation.
>
> Does Linux install in NTFS format or he will have to make partion of FAT
> 32 ?
>
> In general any help regarding how he should go about it will be of great
> help to us.
>
> Thanks.

Linux cannot install in NTFS, because NTFS has very, very different ideas
about how file ownership works and different ideas about how hardlinks and
symlinks work. Linux can *read* NTFS, and more recently write NTFS, with the
right kernel modules loaded. But file ownership gets tricky, and it's easier
to declare a shared space of FAT32 for both operating systems to access.

Nor can Linux install on FAT32, which has no concept of file ownership and
numerous other issues. He needs Linux compatible file systems, such as ext3 or
reiserfs. (I happen to detest ReiserFS, but tastes vary.)

If I were he, I would not upgrade: I would *ADD* the new hard drive, install
Linux on the second drive with a generous 20 Gig partition for the OS itself,
a modest 100 MB /boot partition (for various reasons), and leave the rest for
assignment to FAT32 or Linux builk partitions as needed. That's where I'd put
the music files, downloads of software, CD images, etc. that he might want to
share among the OS's. And I'd look very firmly into virtualization, with
VMware or Xen, to allow access to a Windows OS while running Linux.

Avoid getting hung up on over-partitioning and overplannying the layout of the
Linux: it's easier to have a few bulky partitons than try to pre-judge exactly
how much each one should be, and have to expand them later.
From: Jean-David Beyer on 5 Apr 2008 09:26
Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote (in part):

> If I were he, I would not upgrade: I would *ADD* the new hard drive,
> install Linux on the second drive with a generous 20 Gig partition for
> the OS itself, a modest 100 MB /boot partition (for various reasons),
> and leave the rest for assignment to FAT32 or Linux builk partitions as
> needed. That's where I'd put the music files, downloads of software, CD
> images, etc. that he might want to share among the OS's.

I agree that this is definitely the way to go at the beginning. It happens
to be the way I started using Linux in 1998. At the time I had a 1.6 GByte
hard drive for Windows 95 (I have more RAM than that in my main machine now
-- it is not the same machine, though).

> And I'd look
> very firmly into virtualization, with VMware or Xen, to allow access to
> a Windows OS while running Linux.

That may make sense. I do not do that because I run my main machine
Linux-Only. My old machine runs both Windows XP Home and Linux, dual boot. I
do not mind dual-booting that because I run Windows a little while once a
year for TurboTax. The rest of the time it runs Boinc projects under Linux.
>
> Avoid getting hung up on over-partitioning and overplannying the layout
> of the Linux: it's easier to have a few bulky partitons than try to
> pre-judge exactly how much each one should be, and have to expand them
> later.

I also think Nico is correct here. When I started running Linux, I made lots
of partitions, and of course they were not the best sizes. Each time I
upgraded (I started with Red Hat Linux 5.0), I simplified the partition
structure. I still have more partitions than I need (but I have 6 hard
drives on this machine). I have one partition on each of four small (18
GByte) hard drives for a postgreSQL database, and more on my two larger hard
drives (73 GByte) for everything else.

My old (dual boot) machine is partitioned like this:

Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 3134 25173823+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /W_XP
/dev/hda2 3135 3657 4200997+ c W95 FAT32 /w_xp
/dev/hda3 3658 3670 104422+ 83 Linux /boot
/dev/hda4 3671 9964 50556555 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 3671 4193 4200966 83 Linux /
/dev/hda6 4194 4324 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 4325 4847 4200966 83 Linux /opt
/dev/hda8 4848 5370 4200966 83 Linux /usr/local
/dev/hda9 5371 5893 4200966 83 Linux /usr/src
/dev/hda10 5894 6938 8393931 83 Linux /boinc

Disk /dev/sda: 9184 MB, 9184760832 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 8759 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1000 1023984 83 Linux /tmp
/dev/sda2 1001 6000 5120000 83 Linux /home

Disk /dev/sdb: 9184 MB, 9184760832 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 8759 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 1000 1023984 83 Linux /var
/dev/sdb2 1001 6000 5120000 83 Linux /usr


I _do not_ advise using this many partitions, especially to begin with. It
does not really make a lot of sense for me either, but it used to be my main
machine and was partitioned differently then. As I use it now, I could
remove /dev/sda and /dev/sdb and put everything on /dev/hda. But since the
drives are in there, I might as well use them.

Things to note.

/dev/hda1 is the first partition, the main Windows XP one, that is NTFS.
/dev/hda2 is a Windows XP FAT partition that I share with Linux. That is
where I keep my TurboTax program and data. It is mounted on the Linux
machine so when I back up the Linux stuff (to tape), it backs up that part
of Windows stuff as well.

If you machine is at all modern, you do not need a separate /boot partition.
In the old days it was a good idea, so I still keep it separate, but there
is not much need to do that these days. If you were very security conscious,
you might mount it read-only, but I do not bother.

Many users do not put anything in /opt, (or else put very little in there);
so they might as well not make that partition either. Then /opt, if needed
at all, would be in /. Similarly for /usr/local and /usr/src. Even if you
run BOINC, you do not need a /boinc partition, though I prefer a separate one.

I do like having a separate /home, /tmp, /usr, and /var, but until you run
Linux for a year or so, you will not really have a good idea what size to
make them, because it depends on what _you_ do with your machine more than
most rules-of-thumb can tell you. To begin with, while you are learning,
putting them all in / is a good way to start. After a year or so, you will
have the data necessary to decide if you want more partitions, and to decide
what size they should be.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 08:25:01 up 18 days, 13:27, 4 users, load average: 4.22, 4.12, 4.04
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