On Thu, 2007-05-10 at 09:52 +1000, Howard Lowndes wrote: > > P. G. Schmitt wrote: > > Looking at installing for the first time. The drive is currently NTFS. > > Will Linux install to this or do I need to redo it as FAT(32)? > > Will Linux read NTFS formatted partitions? > > I assume you will be wanting to do this installation on a machine that > is currently running XP Pro, which by default formats the disk as NTFS. > > You need to decide if you want to retain XP and install Linux as well so > that you can dual boot, or if you are going to flick XP and only have Linux. > > Linux does not use NTFS as its base format, it usually uses ext3 > (depends on the distribution). If you want to have both XP and Linux > then you can ntfs-ng to access the XP partition.
This is what I do: * reboot the machine from Ubuntu 7.04 live CD (other distros work too) * go to System/Administration/Gnome Partition Editor * Shrink the NTFS partition according to need (50% ?) * create a new Linux swap partition (twice your ram size? about 2 gig) * create a new Linux ext3 partition in the remaining space * leave any hidden Windows recovery partition as it is * apply changes then use the installer function you will see on your desktop and let the very clever system do the rest. You will have to make some decisions, but mostly the system does it for you, including creating a nice dual boot menu that works perfectly. >From recollection, the NTFS file system will be available "read only" in the default set up. If you aren't sure what you are doing, that is probably a good thing, because it reduces the chance that you will stuff up your Windows set up. Linux is much more forgiving, and in any case Windows can't read ext3. A flash drive or external drive will transfer Windows <-> Linux. There are other ways of doing it (see above), but that's the simplest. I made the mistake of deleting windows entirely on one laptop. I don't recommend that. For one thing, if you go to sell your laptop it scares a lot of potential buyers away. Of course once they realise that Linux is mostly better, they may well become converts but there is no point in scaring them off. Also there are unfortunately SOME things that still require Windows (eg: my 4 year old grandson's car racing game). One important caveat: Make sure you backup your data before changing partitions. Personally, I've never had a crash or problem with this procedure, but I wouldn't bet my next great novel or my PhD thesis on it. But then again, you back up everything anyway, don't you??? Oh, and don't forget to plug in mains power if it's a laptop. I hate to think what happens if you lose battery half way through a partition change. Does anyone know? -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
