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Linux Newbie

A

AMDPwred

Diamond Member
I just bought a book on Linux because my neighbor owns his own programming business. I was enquiring as to what he does and letting him know I am majoring in computer programming myself. He was telling me how alot of places, including his, use Linux boxes. He said I should learn it. So I bought a book that includes Linux Red Hat 7.1. Now my question is how big of a partition and how can I install it without losing my current Win2K install? I've heard of Partition Magic but I'd really like to find a solution without having to spend money. Thanks for any help.
 
Hey i'm in the same situation..sort of. just installed RH 7.1, and it's pretty cool. About the partitioning...that's a tough spot to be in. I would recommend warez but of course that will get me bitched at, other than that I don't know. Altogether, my linux partition, linux swap and linux home partitions take up around 3-5 gigs.
 
I actually just installed Mandrake 8.1 on my computer today, and I now have a Win2k/Linux dual boot. I'm not sure about any of the other distros, but Mandrake had a partitioning utility included right in the setup program. Also, if you look at the Anandtech FAQs, there is an article in the OS section about how to do a Win2k/Linux dual boot and use the NT Boot Loader instead of LILO. Hope this helps.

-Tom
 
You could get another hard drive (a small one) and install linux on that. If you have a spare POS computer try that... But dont get a warezed version of partition magic that would be bad mmmkay? ;P
 


<< I actually just installed Mandrake 8.1 on my computer today, and I now have a Win2k/Linux dual boot. I'm not sure about any of the other distros, but Mandrake had a partitioning utility included right in the setup program. Also, if you look at the Anandtech FAQs, there is an article in the OS section about how to do a Win2k/Linux dual boot and use the NT Boot Loader instead of LILO. Hope this helps.

-Tom >>



I dont think their fdisk or whatever will resize partitions and from other posts I think Mr Pwred would need to resize his partitions first.
 
You will need to repartition your system. Partition Magic or something. The best way to do it would be this.

On your primary drive make a 50Mb boot partition at the beginning of the drive. Then, I would make your Linux Partition where ever. I would make it around 2 gigs though that should be plenty. I wouldnt use parition magic to make your swap partition or anything, I would just make one big 2 gig partition and let linux divide it up. I would probably have linux make a 128 mb swap partition and i would just allocate the rest to linux. Then, when the installer asks, install lilo to /boot (not MBR) and redhat 7.1 will go ahead and configure you for dual booting with w2k. That should work well enough
 
Well I tried to use the system that is in the setup of Red Hat but it said I don't have enough space. When I partitioned for Win2K I set all of my HHD for it. So there is no way in the Red Hat setup partition to take some away from Win and give it to Linux?
 


<< Well I tried to use the system that is in the setup of Red Hat but it said I don't have enough space. When I partitioned for Win2K I set all of my HHD for it. So there is no way in the Red Hat setup partition to take some away from Win and give it to Linux? >>



Not without destroying the old partitions. Unfortunately there is not an easy way to do this.
 
That should be something they try and emprove on in later OSs😀

Do any of you think I should just install it on an old PC I have. That way I wouldn't take the chance of screwing up my nice PC. I have an old 133mhz box I could throw it on. Any opinions?
 


<< That should be something they try and emprove on in later OSs😀

Do any of you think I should just install it on an old PC I have. That way I wouldn't take the chance of screwing up my nice PC. I have an old 133mhz box I could throw it on. Any opinions? >>



That would be the option I would go for. Dont expect blazing speed though. But that would be great for getting your feet wet.
 
Yeah, I'm just trying to learn Linux. Not use it for browsing, IMing, programming or anything yet. Mostly just to get confortable with it. Do you guys agree that it's really that great of an OS? Is it difficult to use and learn?
 


<< Yeah, I'm just trying to learn Linux. Not use it for browsing, IMing, programming or anything yet. Mostly just to get confortable with it. Do you guys agree that it's really that great of an OS? Is it difficult to use and learn? >>



Ok, my wierd linux history:

Read up on linux and UNIX for about a year to a year and a half. Started using it at RedHat 5.2, found it almost unusable (winmodem so I couldnt do much with it, but I got used to some of its quirks at the time). I tried slack 7.0 later and was in heaven. Eventually it was out of date to the point where it wasnt worth upgrading (later when I formatted to try other things). Tried Mandrake 7.1 and it was pretty good. I tried FreeBSD a few times, and I thought it was much better than linux. I then tried OpenBSD and it was the easiest cleanest system I have EVER used.

So what you should gather from that: 1. You will need to READ to understand it. Please ask questions, but RTFM should come first. 2. If RedHat doesnt do it for you try Mandrake, if that isnt your thing try SuSE, if that isnt quite right, try slack, if thats close but not quite what you want try a BSD. 3. Read the Whole Hawg UNIX link in my sig. Its a neat little story and may help you understand (or just confuse you right now) the UNIX philosophy.
 
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