RedHat Partitions - Install

[Poontos]

Just playing around with 8.0 and the automatic partitioner, but it did not work, due my setup, me thinks.

Same physical HD, on an Inspiron 4100

C:\NTFS 4GB w/ Win2K Professional Installed
Free Space 4GB
E:\NTFS 10GB w/ Data/Backup

What should I setup manually in disk druid for the install to continue? I do not want to modify my C: & E: obviously, and I will need a dual boot loader (which I will reference from the ATFAQ of course). I went through some Redhat docs, but it does not get right to the point.

As well... I only have one extra drive bay, so when I install RedHat with my CD-ROM drive installed, how do I create a boot disk without screwing up the install by removing the CD-ROM and expecting the OS to see the swapped in floppy drive? 🙂


Thanks!

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Poontos
Just playing around with 8.0 and the automatic partitioner, but it did not work, due my setup, me thinks.

Same physical HD, on an Inspiron 4100

C:\NTFS 4GB w/ Win2K Professional Installed
Free Space 4GB
E:\NTFS 10GB w/ Data/Backup

What should I setup manually in disk druid for the install to continue? I do not want to modify my C: & E: obviously, and I will need a dual boot loader (which I will reference from the ATFAQ of course). I went through some Redhat docs, but it does not get right to the point.

I've installed RH 8 a couple times now, and I've found that the partitioner is a little flaky. I think all that's absolutely necessary is a partition with mount point / . But one would hope to have a swap partition as well. My problem was that sometimes the partition would get created, but not set as / , in which case the installer refuses to continue. In one partitioning attempt, it simply would not let me set the mount point - the mount point field was inactive, even though the rest of it was correct. I eventually just cancelled and started over with a different partitioning method.

As well... I only have one extra drive bay, so when I install RedHat with my CD-ROM drive installed, how do I create a boot disk without screwing up the install by removing the CD-ROM and expecting the OS to see the swapped in floppy drive?

Hmm... not so easy. One way would be to install LILO/GRUB to the partition boot record (which you'll probably want to do anyway), then use fdisk from a DOS boot disk to set the linux partition as active. The linux partition might have to be a primary for that to work, but I'm not certain. Another way would be to boot up with a boot/root disk set (very handy) and create a kernel boot disk. But that's a little harder. Perhaps there are other possibilities, too. See what other people come up with...

 

[Poontos]

Thank you for the input, cleverhandle.

So for now, with regards to the partitioning, I should try and see if creating a / of say 500MB and a swap of 128MB and see if it goes?

FreeBSD's is much more of an enjoyable slice, but I need to figure this one out. 😀

Anyone else seen this?

 

[cleverhandle]

So for now, with regards to the partitioning, I should try and see if creating a / of say 500MB and a swap of 128MB and see if it goes?

Um... don't you want to use the whole 4GB that's free? Or are you just checking out how the installer works? You might not even be able to install RH on 500MB without doing a custom install. I would just create the swap partition first, making it twice the size of your RAM, then make the rest of the free space your root partition. The installer will probably complain about booting past 1024 cylinders, but I'm about 99% sure you can safely ignore that.

Of course, someone will tell you that you need more complicated partitioning. Don't believe the hype...

And do you really prefer BSD slices to this? I admittedly have only installed BSD once, but found slices much more confusing.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: Poontos
Just playing around with 8.0 and the automatic partitioner, but it did not work, due my setup, me thinks.

Same physical HD, on an Inspiron 4100

C:\NTFS 4GB w/ Win2K Professional Installed
Free Space 4GB
E:\NTFS 10GB w/ Data/Backup

What should I setup manually in disk druid for the install to continue? I do not want to modify my C: & E: obviously, and I will need a dual boot loader (which I will reference from the ATFAQ of course). I went through some Redhat docs, but it does not get right to the point.

As well... I only have one extra drive bay, so when I install RedHat with my CD-ROM drive installed, how do I create a boot disk without screwing up the install by removing the CD-ROM and expecting the OS to see the swapped in floppy drive? 🙂


Thanks!

I have an Inspiron 4100 as well with XPhome/RH8 dual 😉. As far as floppy goes you can just hot swap the drives during install it works....atleast it worked for RH7.3 I can't imagine why it wouldn't for RH8. Anyway otherwise forget the bootdisk and use the install cd1 and type linux rescue at the prompt. Then just mount your partitions and chroot to them.

I recommend Lilo for the bootloader ('cause that's what I familiar with) and you can just edit the lilo file right there. I assume C: is on the front of the drive so you'll need to enable LBA32 in the advanced properties. Or you can use the WinXP bootloader but that's just a PITA.

Hda1: Fat32 (I need to write sometimes): WinXP
Hda5: ext3: /boot: 64 MB
Hda6: SWAP: 256 MB (i think)
Hda7: ext3: /: 3 GB (about)

 

[Poontos]

I am really not liking this RedHat 8.0 Installer....crashed three times now after the partitioning section with some vague error and gnome stuff in the background.

Anyone else had it crash?