Dual boot for new hard drive

[Dangermouse1]

Hi all
I am waiting for my new hard drive to be delivered and thought it would be a good time to try out linux. I have done some research on linux and have decided (i think) I would like to have dual boot with linux and Windows ME. The question is how to go about partitioning the new drive? All advice will be greatfully recieved.
Thanks Dangermouse1

[jglen490]

Since you didn't specify the size of your new drive, I'll give you my opinion using a hypothetical size of 40GB. You can pretty well do the math from there !! You also didn't specify which Linux distro you are looking at, so I'll give you my viewpoint using Mandrake.

Let's say that you do a lot of things in WinME and will continue to do so for a while even after going dual-boot. Let's also say that you will want to share some data files between WinME and Linux, such as MP3, WP docs, spreadsheets, and other such things.

In general you will load WinME first, you will load Linux second. You will have three general areas on your hard drive: one for WinME, one for the shared data files, and the third area for Linux.

Install WinME so that all it uses and formats and partitions two FAT32 partitions. One 15GB for WinME and one 10GB for the shared data files. When you are finished with WinME, make sure the BIOS boots from the CD drive first and then reboot your machine with the Mandrake CD#1 in the CD drive. The Mandrake install menu will start and one of the things it will ask is whether you want to do an "Expert" install or a "Recommended" install. Select the "Expert" install. What that does is give you more control over the install process while presenting decent default values and allowing you to input the things that you want specifically. The install menu is very well organized, you will see what has been done, and what is coming up next, so you can prepare yourself. Eventually you will be presented with a dialog that lets you select what partitions you want to set up for your Linux space and how big each should be. This is a very important step.

Make sure you select the unused space for Linux. The screen will display a very nice graphical representation of your hard drive. You will need at least two partitions: one for swap, the other will be a native Linux filesystem. You can set up more partitions, I use three on my current setup: one swap, one for the /var directory (and its subs), and one for "/" (the root partition and all the other directories under that except for /var. You can do more that that. Many folks will recommend one for /home and one for /usr in addition to my scenario.

O.K., let's say you go with swap, /var, /usr, /home, and then everything else under "/". Build your swap partition, you shouldn't need more than 200MB - 250MB and most of that will probably never be used -- depending on how much physical RAM you have. You have a total of 15GB available for Linux so try a /var of 500MB, a /usr of 5GB, a /home of 5GB and the rest for "/". Each of these partitions (except swap) should be formatted with either the ext3 or ReiserFS filesystem. Personally, I like ext3 which is very stable on my little system. All these parameters can be input using this filesystem dialog screen. hey if you screw it up the first time, just do it again. On my first install, I went through this maybe 5 - 6 times before I figured out what I really wanted.

After you get through this, then the next biggie is loading packages. You would have, in this scenario, room to load everything that Mandrake can throw. Just look through the selection screen and see what you like, or what looks interesting and select it. Once you select what you want, let it install.

There are lots of other steps, of course, but just watch them closely, pay attention to what the installer is asking, and answer the way that you want to see your Linux system built.

The two biggest hurdles you will face are setting up the video and setting up a modem, if you are going dialup. Video card makers and modem makers have the hardest time giving up theri little hardware secrets, but they are getting better. Do some homework on those two items.

Oh, and good luck -- I hope you enjoy Linux!!

[TMAN]

thats pretty thorough and I wouldn't change much but I'd like to know what you use your computer for, if you feel the need to expand, what distro you're looking into, how big is the drive, what your system is like, etc. As for actual partitions, well given jglen's scheme I would have a separate partition for /usr (this is like your program files folder) and I would say that 5GB should do it nicely. I would add no /var unless this is a server. I would also suggest a /home (your my documents and personal config files) to be 1.5GBx# of Users on system since you would share files on a FAT32 partition anyways. This all could change greatly with more information but either configuration should be good either way.

[Dangermouse1]

Hi
Sorry for being so vauge. Its a 40gig western digital drive and i have a cd with mandrake 9 on it from a linux pc mag. I would be happy to try something else if anyone thinks that would be better. As for what the comp is used for mostly general stuff surfing word processing etc. Not into gaming much or other core uses.

[jglen490]

I would recommend you give Mandrake 9.0 a try -- after all you already have the distro, and you know what they say about a bird in the hand!!

TMAN has good points about sizing also, and mine were just some random thoughts which are actually different from my real-world configuration at home. You can't go wrong with actually installing Linux and you can't go wrong with doing some experimenting and some learning before using it. Of course, the real reason to install it is to use this beautiful thing called Linux !

Enjoy!!

[Dangermouse1]

Thanks all
Still waiting for the hard drive it should be here today if not Monday will let you know how it goes.
Thanks DM1

[Dangermouse1]

Sorry it took so long to let you all know how it went but i have been very busy. But with your help i have now got dual boot and am currently playing with Mandrake 9.
thanks DM1