Kirk McElhearn wrote:
> Or do I need to partition the HD before installing
> anything?
Good partitioning is so essential to the running of any multiple-OS
computer that it isn't worth taking any risks with (like tyres on a
car, and the battery in cold climates).
Partition Magic is mature, well known, and works well for all OSs and
file system types. Ranish is only beta, Mandrake's partitioner is
too new (look at the history of bugs behind Partition Magic!).
The basic problem is that there is no ISO, or any other, standard or
organisation in charge of how disks should be partitioned - for
example, Windows traditionally builds the partition tables in start
cylinder number order, Unix/Linux traditionally builds them in
creation time order. Fundamental ditfferences like that make
interworking catastrophic. Because this whole area has just grown
like Topsy, it is not well designed, and has been much klooged over
the years to retain the required backwards compatibility. Therefore
there are lots of gotchas. For a salutory education, just look at the
error message listing in the back of the Partition Magic manual!.
Mandrake has not yet published the error messages for its
partitioner.
So, yes, set up your hard disks with a good multi-OS and
multi-file-system-type partitioner before you install. The only one
I know that can be confidently trusted is Partition Magic. Yes, it
does cost, but it's more than worth it.
Partitioning is not just a one time job - you will be readjusting the
partitioning, say, monthly, as your space demands grow.
--
Regards,
Ron. [AU] - sent by Linux.
