On Thu, 29 Aug 1996 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Hi! I want to become one of the enlightened, and start using Linux. > I've downloaded the Dedian Linux 1.1, and made my floppies with > rawrite2. > > I have no special partitions now. Win95 is just installed on the > whole 853M HD. The Dedian instructions indicate that setting up > Linux and Linux Swap Partitions are part of their standard > installation, but, alas, I did not get near that point before I had > trouble.
Hold it here. I can't address the trouble you had with the boot process. I suggest you look at the document "Installing Debian 1.1 from Floppy Disk" in the hardware sections to see if that helps. However, before you try to install Linux, you must have a free partition on one of your hard drives. This partition will be erased, and reformatted into two new partitions. If you have only one HD, you need to do this first: The latest version of FIPS (free repartitioning program) can non-destructively split you Win '95 partition if you have enough available space. But, you must backup your data if it is critical because you may lose it all! Let's say you've got 853M with 400M of data. You need to defrag your drive so all the files will be in the first half. Now, you can use FIPS to split your drive into say, a 500M and 353M partition. When you successfully run the Linux installation program, it will allow you to erase the second partition and create say, a 26M swap and a 330M linux partition for your root filesystem. Once you've got your system ready, you should be able to install from one of the floppy disk sets. Note that when the first disk says 'boot:', you can press the function keys for some help on hardware specific parameters for the boot prompt. Good luck, and keep trying. Also, backup your stuff or risk losing it. I've taken that gamble half a dozen times :-), Syrus. ---------------------------------------------------------- Syrus Nemat-Nasser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> UCSD Physics Dept.
