On 06/22/2013 09:45 PM, David Christensen wrote: > On 06/22/13 13:42, Lagun Adeshina wrote: >> 1. I set out to install Debian from Windows 7 >> 2. I downloaded the win 32 Debian Installer and went through the procedures >> 3. On reaching the partitioning option I got a little confused I had used >> the RAID5 Partition then >> 4. I went on to stop the installing >> 5. I could not restart either my window 7 nor continue the installing >> 6. My computer is a emachine 732 running initially on windows 7 >> 7. Help me please > > I'll assume that your computer has one drive (SSD or HDD) and that you > are just starting to learn Linux. I'm not sure if you also want to run > Windows. > > > The are several choices: > > 1. Fix or reinstall Windows, install virtual machine software, and > install Linux into a virtual machine. > > 2. Wipe the drive and install Linux. > > 3. Install both Windows and Linux on the drive (dual boot). > > > #1 is for somebody who knows how to install, configure, and administer > Windows, will offer the best Windows experience, and will allow you to > play with Linux with reduced risk of breaking Windows. If you don't > know how to install, configure, and administer Windows, there are many > technicians and stores that can fix it for you. Once you have Windows > working again, this is probably the best option for a Linux novice. > > > #2 is for somebody who knows how to install, configure, and administer > Linux, and will offer the best Linux experience. Hiring a tech to do > this could be problematic; every Linux operator has their own style for > installing, configuring, and administering Linux. Also, beware that > eMachines may have put software installation images (including Windows) > and/or other important data on the drive at the factory; wiping the > drive will destroy those items! This option only makes sense if you > have installation discs for all your software and are confident that > there is no important data on your system drive. > > > #3 requires knowledge of both Windows and Linux, but I found it to be > impractical -- I wanted both Windows and Linux running at the same time. > (My solution was to have two computers -- one Windows and one Linux.) > This is the most complex option. > > > As always, you should back-up all of your data before wiping, > partitioning, formatting, etc., your drive and/or installing another > operating system. It's also good to take an image of the entire drive > before and after such operations so that you can quickly, easily, and > reliably return the drive to a known state at any time. > > > HTH, > > David > >
I have been running dual-boot systems for quite a few years now. I also do what David said: I have one computer on which I customarily run Windows 7, (altho it dual-boots with PCLOS-KDE-64) and another computer which customarily runs PCLOS-KDE-32 (altho it dual boots with Windows 8, Classic Shell add-on). I personally would not try to run any version of Linux from within Windows--I think that's just asking for trouble! (As you seem to have found out!) There should be no difficulty setting up dual-booting, once you get Windows working again. The advice to set up your partitions outside of the Linux install is excellent. Download and burn a disk with GParted on it. It will be a bootable disk. Then deal with the partitions separately from the install routine. Get Windows working again, then squeeze it down somewhat so you will have space for another operating system. Make sure you leave enough space for the Windows system to expand. Windows will be on a primary partition, sda1. Make an extended partition after that, and Linux partitions within it--most commonly, / and /home and /swap. (Swap only needs to be twice the memory size. Some folks say to put it first, as it might result in faster access, but I don't think it will make any difference to most of us.) You might consider giving / and /home actual names. You'll have to look that up, I forget how. But if you wind up with yet another OS on the drive, it will help you to keep track of things. There is one particular advantage to dual booting--Linux can read and write to the Windows partition, so if Windows tends to snow you sometimes--like in the processing of received zip archives--you can extract and process the zip archives in Linux, where you have complete control over where the files are stored, the names of them, etc., and then copy the files to someplace in Windows where you can find them! NOTA BENE: Any downloaded file called "setup.exe" should be renamed to something like "setup_foo.exe" where foo is the name or abbreviation of whatever program it is designed to set up. Otherwise, how do you know what program the file called setup is going to install? When you have a Windows Explorer with five "setup" files on it, you'll thank me! If you have trouble networking the Windows and the Linux computer, you can always email yourself a file from one machine to the other. Or copy it to a flash drive and sneaker-net it. (Do not format the flash with an ext filesystem if you're going to do that--Windows can't read that filesystem. Actually there is supposed to be some Windows program that will read up to ext3, but I haven't seen it myself. Read, but not write.) --doug -- Blessed are the peacemakers..for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.M.Greeley -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/51c663d4.8060...@optonline.net
