On 31 Mar, George Sullivan wrote:
> I will be needing some help in the near future.
>
> I just ordered a dell laptop with Redhat Linux pre-installed.
>
> Will it be possible to repartition this machine, add windows98 and make it a
> dual boot machine. I know how to ad Linux if the machine already has
> windows installed and I am familiar with partionmagic utility. I just don't
> know if the opposite scenario is possible
>
> Thanks
Hmmm. I suspect that you may be in for a complete reinstall. I think
I heard a little while ago that either Partition Magic or fips will now
resize ext2 partitions, but:
Windows wants to be on the active primary partition and has problems
sharing the disk with other OS's. It may insist on being at the front
of the disk, in which case you'll probably have to reinstall
everything anyway. Ferenc's advice on making a boot floppy so you can
get back into Linux is a must if you do manage to save your Linux
partition; Windows WILL clobber your boot record.
If you can't alter the size of your Linux partition, then you'll have
to install everything from scratch; just install Windows first and then
do Linux afterwards to avoid problems with the Windows install
clobbering the boot sector. Should you do this, make sure to delete
all the partitions from Linux before trying to install Windows; I
recently got a new hard drive and decided to reinstall Windows on the
old hard drive so I could play some games (Half Life, Baldur's Gate,
etc.). Windows refused to install until I rebooted with a Linux disk
and removed the Linux partitions with Linux fdisk, after which
<small rant>
Even so, that's not much more work than you'll have to do with the
system anyway; I just got in two Dell Precisions with Redhat 6.0
preloaded, and I am NOT IMPRESSED. They shipped those machines with all
kinds of known security holes. Redhat's web site has a fair number of
updates to RH6.0 which were not applied, AND they shipped them with far
too many services enabled by default, including a couple of the r*
services, which IMNSHO should not be enabled unless you know what
you're getting yourself into. Not only that, but the very first
time I logged in, it took me straight to the Gnome desktop, running
Enlightenment. I have no complaints with that, these machines are
way more than big enough to deal with that. What I have a complaint
with is that it opened the file manager by default, showing me two
or three folders -- and a core dump! That's a rather poor
introduction to Linux at best. When I pay for installation service, I
expect a little better than that for my money!
<goes ranting and raving off into the sunset...>
--
Stephen Ryan Debian GNU/Linux
Technology Coordinator
Center for Educational Outcomes,
C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College
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