On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 14:05 +0000, Anthony Campbell wrote: > I'm getting a new Thinkpad Z61M and shall be installing Debian > (naturally!). When I last did this on a Thinkpad a couple of years ago I > just deleted the Windows partition completely, but I have found, *very* > rarely, that I needed it. > > I'd therefore like to keep Windows, at least for the moment, so I'll > need to shrink its partition. Two questions: > > a. How small could its partition be? Would 10 GB be enough, or too much?
That's definitely enough and prob a good place to start. From experience 3Gb isn't enough. (I'm talking for XP Pro - it may depend a bit on which version and what you install.) > b. 3.5: If I understand the Debian Installation manual correctly, I can > do this by simply selecting a different size for the partition during > the installation process. > > "If your machine has a FAT or NTFS filesystem, as used by DOS > and Windows, you can wait and use Debian installer's > partitioning program to resize the filesystem." > > Won't this destroy all the Windows stuff? No, the partition editors are clever enough to shrink partitions without deleting files (so you can always install/use XP and then shrink to whatever at a later date - although this may mean a small-ish /whatever partition for Linux). But you are always warned to backup important data first. Just don't use the WinXP setup disk to create/amend partitions - you may end up in a real mess (I did! see previous entries on this mailing list). Michael -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]