On Mon, 6 Apr 1998, Valerie CAYOL wrote: > A old version of linux is already installed on my computer > and the disk is partitionned between linux and dos. > I would like to install a new version of linux (debian linux 131), keeping > my dos partition untouched. Is this possible and if so, could anyone tell > me how I can do that ?
This should be no problem. Part of the installation procedure on the debian 1.3.1 install floppies is a cfdisk session. With cfdisk you can alter the parttioning scheme on the harddisk. In your case, just leave the dos partition as it is. It will stay the way it was. You may also want to keep the partitioning scheme of the linux partitions, if you are happy with the way you have set the harddisk for the previous installation of linux. But maybe you want to do it all over. In that case, simply remove (delete) the linux partitions (keeping the dos partition intact) and create new linux partitions in the free space. Don't forget to make a swap partition. When you're done with the partitions, whether or not you've changed the partition layout, the next step (after creating and adding swap space) is to create file systems on the partitions. Again, don't touch the linux partition (don't worry, the installer program will ignore the dos partition.) If you have a lot of files in your home directory and the home directories are on a separate partition (and you haven't erased that partition with cfdisk), you may want to choose to keep that home partition. In that case, don't initialize a filesystem on that partition, just let it be the way it was. You should reinitialize the other filesystems so that debian linux has clean filesystems to install its files on. Next, you'll have to mount the filesystems. First mount the root filesystem, then mount the other filesystems on top of that. If you have kept a previous home filesystem, mount that partition on /home. I am not entirely sure, but it is possible that the installation program even lets you mount the dos partition, you can mount it on /dos for example. When you've setup debian once, you'll never have to do this again if you later want to upgrade. Once you have debian running you can upgrade with dpkg and dselect while your system keeps running. No need to even reboot (except in exceptional cases.) Cheers, Joost -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
