Windows and Mandrake Linux what is the best partition setup for my system?

[Blayze]

I have a 30gig Maxtor and a 20gig Maxtor setup in my machine now.

I am going to be doing a reinstall of everything on my system this week, and I want to setup a dual boot with Linux.

I know very little about linux, but would like to learn.


I was wondering what would be the best way to partition these drives. I was thinking about using the 30 gig for Windows, and the 20 gig for linux, but Im not sure if I really need that much space for my Linux install.

Also should I partition the Windows drive as Fat32 or NTFS? I am currently using NTFS. (WinXP)

The 30 gig is master and the 20 gig is slave. My DVD drive and CDRW are set on the other IDE channel.

 

[NorthenLove]

Win Drive ( hda )

C ( hda1 )- Primary partition NTFS - This is were all you applications go. ( NTFS partition will not be read-able by Linux by default!!!! )

D ( hda2 )- Secondary partition Fat32 - This is were all your data and files you wish to save/backup or share go. Like mp3's, jpegs, patches for games, zip's, etc....

Linux Drive ( hdb )

hdb1 / - This is ROOT.

hdb2 swap - Use about 1.5 gb for swap and you should be more then okay.

hbb3 /home - This is were all you data and files you wish to save/backup or share go. Like mp3's, jpegs, mpegs, rpms, tarballs, etc....

Don't worry about your DVD or CDR. I got both a CDR and DVD and both work great under SuSE 7.3. Also make sure you make a boot disk to boot Linux up from so you can use it because Windows XP does not like Linux's Grub or Lilo !!! So you won't screw yourself over by fsck'ing with your hard-drives mbr ( Master Boot Record ) please make a boot disk instead of missing with your mbr!!! Your floppy drive is called fd0 ( <- Thats a zero not a O ) under Linux and so you should make sure that Lilo or Grub installs on that rather then your hard-drives mbr.

If you need any more help or a nice place to ask questions then go here =========> http://linuxnewbie.org <========== and register with there forum as well were you can get TONS of help and ask TONS of questions.


P.S. When dealing with Linux and learning about Linux it is helpful if you:

A.) Forget about everything you learned in Windows.

B.) Do not apply any knowledge or computing habits you learned in Windows onto Linux

and last but most importantly.

C.) Remember that Linux is not Windows

So I end this post by saying I hope you enjoy yourself while learning Linux's in's and out's and don't forget that making mistakes and fsck'ing your Linux installation and re-installing is all part of the learning process. Am pretty sure you didn't master Windows in 2 days ( weekend ) or over the course of a week as well either. So take your time and do everything slowly and if you like buy a book about Linux and read it as well and last but not least don't forget too RTFM/D ( a.k.a. Read The F_U_C_KING Manual/Documentation ). LoL that last part is a little Linux humor for you so don't take it personal. 🙂