Hiy'all,
Right then. I've actually been following Linux for about 4 or 5 years now,
(probably closer to 4 than 5), but it's only been recently that I'm now in
a position to get a system that I can use up and running. (Until recently,
if a blind person like me and others wanted to get running on linux, it
involved a second computer connected as a terminal and logging in that way,
and I just didn't have the hardware.) OK, so here I am, getting ready to
put together a new system, I have Slackware 3.6, which I got because I
figure it's probably the distribution I'll learn the most from (never mind
that it may well be the most difficult to maintain.....no RPM's, no GUI,
but who needs a gui anyway?). Right. Anyway, the new system will be an AMD
K6-2-350; 128MB RAM; and a 10.1GB hard drive. On this system, I want to
also run Windows 95...well...more of necessity, in some cases. ...I'm no
Bill Gates fan, and good going on Refund Day. ...
So I've read a bit on the howto's regarding multi-boot installations, and
I'm not exactly sure how this information will apply to me. From what I can
gather anyway, I want to set up a Linux partition (or three...file systems
for root, /usr and /home...although I've used Unix shell Internet access
for a while, bear with the "uh...I'm not very familiar with all the inner
workings, beyond 'it's easy to break stuff if you're not careful'...")
Likely these at least will be native Linux file systems partitions, I
suppose totaling about 2GB in size to start. The rest of the drive will
then be formated FAT16, partially so that both Linux and Win95 can have
access to them, and partly because I'm not sure which way things will go as
far as eventual configuration--which OS will have the lion's share of disk
space, and so on. Of course, one of these FAT16 partitions will boot Win95.
Now, for the really stupid newbie questions mentioned in the subject line.
1) Is it easier to load Win95 first, or Linux first? Or which should go on
the first partition? I read something about anything that is going to be
bootable had better be in the first 524MB of disk space, or else it won't
boot. So does this mean that I have to split things up a bit (I.E. a root
partition with Lilo and stuff on it, then Win95, then the rest of the Linux
file systems, then the rest of my FAT16 drives)? Or am I completely missing
the boat on this one (on which point I wouldn't be surprised)?
Further to that, should I even have any swap partition? If so, how large?
I'll probably mostly be running in command-line apps from bash or tcsh...X
might come along later, once I actually start learning a bit more and/or an
X screen reader project that's going gets to a usable form.
I think once I get a handle on these, I might be able to proceed OK. Of
course, I'm probably wrong there, too...but that's OK :)
Thanks muchly. Apologies for the rambling. Beddie-bye time for me. :)
Buddy
