Linux/Windows Dual-boot system

[PloKoon]

i am about to format my drive and install a fresh copy of XP on it, and i was wanting to create a 2nd partition for mandrake so i can mess around w/ it.

is there anything specific i need to remember or important to prepare for this?
i know mandrake is probably the easiest OS to install but i've never setup a system w/ both windows and linux dual-boot style.

any help/suggestions greatly appreciated!
thanks

 

[jose]

Install XP first then shrink your C: partititon to below the 1024 cylinder. around 8-10gigs.
having partition magic would make this very easy. you could then create an extended partition of the remaining size ie 30gigs if you have a 40 gig drive.

then create a 75mb /boot partition in ext2, then a 10gig /root partition then a 256-512mb /swap partition.

then create your regular windows partitions in ntfs ie. 20gig D:

After doing this then you can load a linux boot/install of say RH9.0 and follow the instructions.

also edit the 2 partitions /boot /root and change the file systems to ext3.

You can use lilo or grub as your boot manager. install this to the mbr of your hd.

Regards,
Jose

 

[Crusty]

There is no reason to go through all of that trouble. As long as he has hard drive space available you just need to pop in the Mandrake CD and install it. It will handle all of the partitioning and formatting, including resizing the partition(kind of dangerous to let the install resize though).

The install is straightforward. Formatting and partitioning in Linux is not difficult but it will take awhile to do it if you he hasn't done it before..

 

[PloKoon]

yes i was busting out in cold sweats after reading jose's post, but i will see what happens.
i just created 2 partitions, giving 80% to xp and leaving the other 20% for mandrake.

hopefully the installation will be as straightforward as you say!

thanks for the help.

 

[Crusty]

What size are the partitions?

 

[PloKoon]

windows will be 60gb
mandrake will be 20gb

is that ok?

 

[PloKoon]

also would it work if i needed to convert the drive to ntfs?

 

[Crusty]

Those partitions sound fine, what do you mean convert to ntfs. I wouldn't mess with ntfs and linux unless you know what you are doing.

 

[PloKoon]

well i just need ntfs for files larger than 4gb (dvd backup) but i've got a 2nd hdd i can use for that.

anyway, thanks for all your help, if i have any further probs i'll post in here!

 

[PloKoon]

well i just need ntfs for files larger than 4gb (dvd backup) but i've got a 2nd hdd i can use for that.

anyway, thanks for all your help, if i have any further probs i'll post in here!

 

[Flatline]

Mandrake will read NTFS "out of the box" but won't write to it, so if you are talking about converting your Windows partition to NTFS it shouldn't be a problem. For linux partitioning, just remember to set up a swap partition (usually about twice the size of the amount of RAM in the system) and a / partition (root). I personally like XFS and Reiser, but EXT3 can be handy because there are free tools out there that will let you read EXT3 from your Windows installation .like this one