can I install linux on a HD without deleting anything on it?

[piski]

I am running xp right now and I would like to install linux on a partition that I have. The partition has files on it that I dont want to lose. Can I install linux on this partition without deleting any of the files and they will still be there after the install?

 

[Abzstrak]

the file systems that work well in linux are not compatible with windows, so no.... you need to format the partition with a linux filesystem.

 

[Spyro]

You could try out knoppix, which is a fully equipped linux distro that runs of a single cd. You can also install peanut linux without doing any repartitioning (read the docs on the site. I know for sure that mandrake has an option in their installer for loopback installs to (no repartitioning). Mandrake and peanut linux would boh run much faster on their own partitions though. Mandrake's installer can also resize existing partitions, so as long as you backup any critical data, this is always a possibility.

 

[piski]

so are you saying that mandrake would work on a windows file system without reformatting? If I had media files on other hard drives that were under windows file system would I be able to access them from linux? Peanut linux same thing?

 

[Kadarin]

http://www.phatlinux.com is a distro that installs within your Windows system. It's hard to tell from the site just how up to date it is, and they do charge. I tried this once a long time ago, when it was free, and it was at the time a good intro to the look and feel of Linux. YMMV.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: piski
so are you saying that mandrake would work on a windows file system without reformatting? If I had media files on other hard drives that were under windows file system would I be able to access them from linux? Peanut linux same thing?

Yes, but it would be considerably slower than the real thing, and with mandrake you have to be careful with their installer. Click next too fast and it would be all to happy to remove windows for you IMHO, peanut linux works much quicker than mandrake when running off of a windows partition. Either way, make sure that you read the docs before doing anything.

 

[Spyro]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
http://www.phatlinux.com is a distro that installs within your Windows system. It's hard to tell from the site just how up to date it is, and they do charge. I tried this once a long time ago, when it was free, and it was at the time a good intro to the look and feel of Linux. YMMV.

I once tried phat linux as well, back in the days before it went free and the distro died. I never stuck with it though, because it just seemed like peanut linux was much better suited to the task. Let's just look at it this way though, the last update to the phat linux site was January 7, 2003 while the peanut linux site was just updated again today. I don't think that it's really worth 25 bucks. I think that it'd be a much better idea to use peanut linux and invest that 25 dollars into pizza and wild cherry pepsis

 

[drag]

You could go and resize the partition, but that's iffy so do backups before using partition magic if you decide to go that route.


The most easiest would be to go and get a second-hand HD somewhere, maybe e-bay or something. A 6 gig'r would be plenty, if just a bit slow.

I guess that you have the windows HD plugged into the primary ide controller as the "master", then plug the linux in as the other IDE controller as a secondary master.

As long as your carefull you can keep either OS completely seperate and (if your bios supports it) use the boot device selection options to switch to either OS.

Then after you get familar with linux you can make the boot loader for linux have a option to boot the windows disk, to make stuff easier.

Then if you decide that you don't like linux you can format the 2nd hd and use it for the extra space. Hell, during the Linux install you can just unplug the windows drives completely (as long as you keep the linux HD/cdrom on the secondary controller).

Then no worrying about screwing up the windows boot loader, or frying the windows partitions, or filling up a windows partition with a linux sudo-filesystem file.

Just my 2 cents

 

[piski]

which peanut version do I want? RPMS or SRPMS? Thanks for the input guys I really really appreciate it. I really want to get into linux

 

[oog]

i ended up using partition magic to resize my windows partitions to allow me to install linux on newly created partitions. it worked perfectly for me. i agree with what drag said though -- you should do backups before you resize the partitions. it's possible to lose your data.

 

[piski]

if i already have the drives partitioned I dont need to resize or anything do I?

 

[drag]

We mean you would resize if you want to run the linux OS on it's own native partition, instead of using something like peanut linux to run it inside a windows partition.

 

[civad]

Did you give zipslack a try?

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: Spyro

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
http://www.phatlinux.com is a distro that installs within your Windows system. It's hard to tell from the site just how up to date it is, and they do charge. I tried this once a long time ago, when it was free, and it was at the time a good intro to the look and feel of Linux. YMMV.

I once tried phat linux as well, back in the days before it went free and the distro died. I never stuck with it though, because it just seemed like peanut linux was much better suited to the task. Let's just look at it this way though, the last update to the phat linux site was January 7, 2003 while the peanut linux site was just updated again today. I don't think that it's really worth 25 bucks. I think that it'd be a much better idea to use peanut linux and invest that 25 dollars into pizza and wild cherry pepsis

Yeah the screenshots all show Gnome 1.x so it definitely seems to be out of date.

 

[piski]

what version of peanut do i want? RPMS or SRPMS? I can install this on a windows drive and it wont delete anything?