On Sun, 17 Jun 2001 20:08, preston smith wrote:
> HI!!
>
> I joined your list in the past 24 hours.
>
> I have downloaded the ISO images for MD 8.0 and am about to start
> the install. I have Windows 98 on my system and wish to have a dual
> boot capability.
>
> I also have Partition Magic 5.0
>
> In reading the MD User document, I am left with the impression that
> the MD installer does not give me the option to allocate the
> existing unallocated space on my drives to MD. Rather it seems to
> infer that it will overwrite existing partitions to get the needed
> space.
>
> Would I be better off setting the disk up with the necessary Win998
> and Linux partitions before I start the MD install process? I have
> one 6.4 GB drive (C, E, F, G, H) and one 1 GB drive (drive D). I
> will collapse the existing partitions on the large drive and make
> about 2.5 GBs available to MD.
>
> As a total MD/Linux newbie, I really have no idea how to proceed so
> can someone walk me through the process and provide me with
> recommendations on how large each of my Linux partitions should be?
>
> Thanks all.
>
> Preston
2.5GB is a bit small for a Linux-Mandrake install. Since first-time
users don't know what packages to install (since there are over a
thousand of 'em), many install the entire shebang -- 2 full CDs worth.
This adds up to nearly 2 gigs. Swap (like virtual memory in Windows
but in a dedicated partition) should be about twice your RAM, with a
maximum of about 256MB (even if you have a huge amount of RAM). So if
you have 64MB of RAM, your swap partition should be around 128MB.
After all that, you won't have much room for your home directory --
the place where ordinary user data is stored. Since you have such a
small amount of space to play with, I don't suggest that you have
multiple partitions. Have one big partition for all your files, but
make a separate one for swap, using the size guide I gave above. For /
(and other directories in one partition), I would suggest at least 3GB
-- you need some space to store files and for breathing room after the
install. This can be done in Partition Magic. After making a backup,
resize or delete your Windows partitions to make the room. You may
want to have the swap partition on the 1GB drive. This way, you can
read data from one physical drive and use the other for swap at the
same time, making things faster. Partition magic ("PM") can make Linux
Swap and Ext2 (Linux Native) filesystems. Make the swap in PM but
leave / unformatted. It is better to use ReiserFS, a filesystem that
can be created in Drakx (Mandrake's installer) but not in PM. ReiserFS
has a number of advantages over Ext2, including excellent
crash-protection ("journaling") and far better space efficiency (a
must on a small partition such as yours). Once that is done, load
Drakx and choose to format the blank partition as ReiserFS. Mount this
as /, your swap partition as (you guessed it) a swap partition, and
mount all your windows partitions in subdirectories under the
directory /mnt. Then just continue the install, making sure not to
fill your drive up with packages :-)
--
Sridhar Dhanapalan.
"There are two major products that come from Berkeley:
LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
-- Jeremy S. Anderson
