On Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Melissa Reese wrote: >> While I'm pretty handy with digging around various bits of Windows, >> "removing partitions" is not a procedure I'm familiar with. Can >> anyone offer me a little "step by step" for this? > > <snip> > >> Is there some literature I can read up on beforehand that explains >> how I might want to partition the drive?
You're no doubt nervous about sailing into uncharted waters. Mandrake is about the friendliest handholding Linux system to install. Since you're wiping the disk and starting fresh, why not just experiment? Play with it some. As another poster pointed out, early in the install you'll be given the option to create new partitions. If you say yes up will pop a rectangle representing your hard drive. If it were Linux it would be divided into chunks representing the partitions. Since Windows doesn't partition a drive into sections, it'll just be a solid rectangle. HERE'S WHERE YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL. At the top lefthand corner of the rectangle you'll see two tabs, hda and hdb. hda will be in the foreground by default, and it will probably be your 80 Gig drive. (Click in the rectangle and it will tell you its size). If that's the case, then click on hdb and your 20 Gig drive will be the one you're looking at. MAKE SURE, because if you partition and format the 80 Gig drive you'll wipe out your Windows installation and ALL your files. When you're looking at the right drive, click in the rectangle and then click on create new partition. It'll suggest / as the first partition. I'd say make it about 1 Gig. You can click to get a dropdown menu that will give you a choice of filesystems. I like reiserfs and think it's a pretty good choice for a nontechie user. When you create that first partition you'll see a sliver at the left end of the rectangle colored red, which means it's a reiserfs partition. Now click again the the remaining part of the rectangle. This time it will offer swap, but will not offer a choice of filesystems because it's just disk space that can be used to supplement your memory chips. If you've got a considerable amount of memory it'll probably suggest about 400 Megs, which is fine. The next partition it will suggest, when you click on the remaining portion of the rectangle, will be /usr. Make it 8 Gigs. That's where a loty of your executable files (ie. to start games or other applications you use) will be located, as well as documentation for all the programs you installed (because you couldn't help yourself!). I think the next default it offers is /home. Once you have permanent data there, like music files, articles, whatever, you NEVER want to reformat /home during upgrades or reinstalls. And Mandrake, bless its friendly heart, will default to not formatting /home. I'd make /home 6 Gigs. The next default offered will be /var, and I'd go ahead and use the rest of the disk for this one. Mandrake by default will not use up all the disk for /var but will offer one or several more partitions of diminishing size, but for a newbie such as yourself this is overkill. Just use all that's left and click done. Mandrake will then list your partitions and ask which you want formatted, and will show x's by its default choices, which will normally exclude /home and I think /var, but in this case will or should include all. If it doesn't, make sure all _are_ checked. After formatting you'll get to package selection. In addition to selecting the major groupings (KDE Desktop, Gnome Desktop, Internet Computer, etc.) I'd also check Individual Package Selection (near the bottom). If that's not available you might have to go back (by turning your computer off, I guess, because I've never figured out another way to back out of an install) and select expert or custom install at the very beginning. There are several options. Now the fun begins, selecting packages. This is the candy part. Mandrake for the most part won't let you go wrong. If you select a package that needs other packages to work, it'll list and ask you to okay the others before letting you choose it. After you've made all your selections you can them, if you like, toggle the list to show everything in alphabetical order rather than in groups. This list will include a _lot_ of packages the other doesn't, and is a good way to make sure that certain programs you always like to have have been checked. I always make sure to include mc (Midnight Commander), for instance, because it makes it so easy to browse your system, directory by directory, subdirectory by subdirectory, file by file. Windows makes it hard to SEE what's on your computer (since the vast majority of files don't have icons on your desktop), whereas Linux makes it transparently easy. After you're satisfied with your picks click on install. If you want to see which programs are being installed as the progress bar goes zipping across the page, click on details. After the install is completed, say 15 to 45 minutes later, depending on your computer's speed and the amount of candy you chose, you get a configuration screen. It's worth clicking on each item, even if you don't change anything (Mandrake is good on defaults). You'll probably have to change the time zone. Near the bottom, in screen configuration, there'll also be an option to boot into the GUI (a desktop with colors, menus, icons) or into a console (a black screen and a prompt, like DOS). I prefer the command line, because it's easy to get into the GUI when you want (we can tell you several ways) and there are so many interesting things you can do (and learn) at the command line. Like you can do <mc> <enter> and explore /usr, /var, /home, etc. using Midnight Commander. And /etc, of course, which has lots of configuration stuff. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The last stage of your install will be to set up the bootloader. Choose the mbr. You have a choice of bootloaders, lilo or grub. Lilo is pretty and grub isn't, but the latter is easier to hand-edit so I use grub. You'll get a list of bootable images to approve, one of which will be Windows. From now on, when you boot up your computer, you'll come to a list of choices, with the one at the top automatically booting after a set amount of time (which you can set), unless you choose on of the others, either the linux or the failsafe linux. And that's it (I think). If you mess up, or want to try a different combination of packages, or are just an install junkie] like myself, you can do it again! This is pretty simple because I'm not a Guru. Hopefully, it's just simple enough. HTH, Dale Huckeby ps. Wait around a little bit until others have had the chance to correct anything stupid I might have said.
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