disk partitioning???? for dual boot 1

[goBoating]

I have installed Win OSs and UNIX OSs on several machines (SUNs, HPs, PCs, etc.). However, I have never tried to set up a PC to dual boot Win98 and LINUX. I need to maintain the Win98 for my wife and kids to do their at-home stuff, and I would like to get LINUX running with Postgres and Apache to use as an R&D environment at home. I bought 'Linux 7 Unleashed' which does a good job of dealing with Linux, but, is not clear when it describes how to use 'Disk Druid' to partition my one IDE drive. The question: Does anyone know if 'Disk Druid', the tool recommended in the book, is reasonably straight forward? Will Disk Druid give me an obvious option to maintain my existing Win98 partition? I would like to avoid deleting/rebuilding my Win98 installation.

Thanks,




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[d3funct]

Whether you use Disk Druid or FDISK you will still see the existing partition map which will show your windows 98 partition. Now for instance say you have an 8Gb disk on your box. Before you do any partitioning check to see how much of the disk windows is actually using and how much is free, so you'll know how much of the disk to dedicate to windows and any file growth. Now when you use disk druid, it will show your 8gb disk and what types of filesystems are on it. You will want to "edit" that, and create a new partition table. KEEP WINDOWS ON THE PRIMARY PARTITION! Dual-booting will not work unless windows is in the primary partition. You should partition like this: Windows/swap/Linux Native. The one reason you should do this is that since you're not moving the windows information on the disk it will not be erased. Another reason is that with the 'swap' space positioned between the two os's it can be utilized by either one faster. So, 8Gb drive say you're currently using 1.5Gb for windows, give 3.8Gb to windows. Give 2 times the amount of ram on your system to swap (i.e., 64Mb of ram, 128Mb of swap), Give the rest to Linux Native. Install the bootloader on the master boot record when that question comes up. Hope all goes well for you.
Jon Zimmer
jon.zimmer@pf.net
The software required `Windows 95 or better', so I installed Linux.

 

[goBoating]

Thanks for the confirmation that Disk Druid will see and leave the DOS/Win98 data, if asked to do so. My book and several Web resources imply such, but, do not explicitly say so. In fact, I found one web source that stated if the original Win98 partition took the entire disk, then, 'Partition Magic' or 'FIPS' would be required to resize the existing partition before a new one could be created. I'll push on with Disk Druid. Worst case, kill Win98, repartition, reinstall both OSs. Not what I want to do. But, not impossible either.

Thanks again




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[goBoating]

Mr. Zimmer,

.....I'm finding more resources that say if the original Windows partition consumes the entire disk, then an additional tool will be required to resize the Windows partition.....Disk Druid would not be able to resize the existing partition. I think I'm going to either buy a new/additional hard drive for the linux install ( <$100 ) or try to use FIPS to resize my existing Windows partition. Any comments would be appreciated.




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo

 

[d3funct]

Well, do what you wish. But I ran win95/98 with Linux for 3 years on a dual boot system that was originally just running Win95/98 on a single partition. When I put Linux on I used fdisk and partitioned the disk, installed Linux and when I was done everything worked fine. But if you have the money, putting Linux on another HD is a better solution anyway. I now have my Linux machine running on another PC than Window$ and it's firewalling and IP forwarding the internet to and from my windows machine, plus I'm sharing files, directories and printers on the machines. So if you acquire an old PC and get network cards and a hub you will be able to do the same. Just remember, the best way to learn is to do. If you screw it up just read and do again until you get it right. &quot;Measure twice, cut once.&quot;
Jon Zimmer
jon.zimmer@pf.net
The software required `Windows 95 or better', so I installed Linux.

 

[goBoating]

Thanks for the input...... As you say, we usually learn the best by doing. I just wish I could eventually get around to learning from other's experience as well.

Thanks again,




keep the rudder amid ship and beware the odd typo