At 05:22 PM 10/6/1998 -0400, Adrian Gudas wrote: >Okay, this is a bit of a newbie question. You've been warned... > >I haven't installed Linux yet, but I'm going to as soon as my CD's arrive in >the mail. I'm pretty well-versed with the setup procedures (after having >read the installation instructions 100 times while on the john -- yes, I >have no life). > >I'm still a bit confused, however, with the way it handles partitions. Am I >supposed to use DOS fdisk to partition and format a DOS partition, and then >run Debian's install, partitioning "sub-partitions" under the non-DOS >partition that I've created earlier? Or will Debian's installation let me >set up a "DOS" partition for me to boot and format later? > >And then, how will I be able to tell what operating system installs into >what partition, and what the MBR will reflect? Help... > >Adrian
Pretend you have a 2GB drive, and you want to give 1GB to DOS and 1GB to Linux. Use DOS's FDISK to partition the drive, but only partition 1 GB (leaving the second gig unpartitioned). Then after your reboot, you can format the drive and you'll have a C:drive and another gig you'd never know about unless you run FDISK (or something similar) to look at the drive. Now use Linux's fdisk (during the Linux install or outside of it) and you'll see that your 2GB drive has a 1GB DOS partition and 1GB of free space. You'd partition that free space as a Linux partition (or partitions). You could do it the other way around, and partition the Linux side first, then the DOS side. You could partition the DOS side from Linux's fdisk, but I've read that DOS won't always read partitions created by other OSes. You can NOT partition the Linux side from DOS, because DOS doesn't know about Linux. I'm not sure, but I about half think that the DOS bootable partition MUST be the first partition. Again, don't quote me on this. At any rate, you'll have at least two partitions when you're done: a DOS partition (or partitions), and a Linux partition (or partitions). You will not have a Linux sub-partition on/below a DOS partition. If you've ever gotten a new PC with a large hard drive (4GB or so) with WinX pre-installed, the vendor may have partitioned the drive into two or more logical drives (C: and D:, even though they're both physically on one physical drive). Likewise, you are (for discussion purposes) creating two or more logical drives on one physical drive; one for DOS, and one for Linux. As far as the MBR goes, if you install DOS or Win, it'll write to the MBR and assume it's the only OS you'd ever want on your computer. If you install Linux's lilo, it'll write to the MBR, but will allow you to specify what OS you want to boot from. If you've already got a DOS/Win partition, and it's taking up the entire drive, you'll have to resize the partition (destroying data unless you use something like the newest Partition Magic or maybe the Linux-bred and free fips utility). Also, when the Linux install asks if you want to install lilo, I'd say no for now and just use the boot floppy you create instead. Then once you know your system is working properly, you can go back and install lilo. The reason I say this is two-fold: 1) I like to make sure I've got a working system before messing with the MBR, and 2) I don't think the installation routine sets up lilo to recognize your old DOS partition, so your DOS side would be lost to you until you can reconfigure lilo. Hope this wasn't two much, or too little, hand-holding. Kent ================================================ Kent West, Technology Support [EMAIL PROTECTED] Abilene Christian Univ., Abilene, TX 915-674-2557 FAX: 915.674.6724 Amateur Radio: KC5ENO Debian Linux: Ride the wave with the penguins!
