Lance,
It sounds like our systems are identical. I'm running the same thing. The
answers to your questions are simple enough.
1) Win95 will run on any size partition. I've had it running already on a
3.5GB, 5GB, and 13.5GB. No problem.
2) partition your linux partitions thusly:
a real basic setup for a large disk sytem that will use LILO as a boot
loader.
/boot = 15MB
/ = however big you want to make it. (at least 3 GB) (the filesystem
root)
/home = at the very least 500MB - more if you're going to have more than
one user
You don't have to worry about 'how' the installation process knows how to
put everything where it needs to go. For now you'll you have to take it on
faith. It knows exactly where to put things. It can see and read the
partition tables, understands the table definitions and loads things up
accordingly.
If you don't want to use LILO you can use the other boot loader called
GRUB which doen't require a /boot partition since it's equiped to handle
cylinder sizes above 1024. LILO can't see beyond this which is why a large
disk needs to be partitioned with a /boot partition.
Even with the use of Grub I still prefer to setup a /boot partition
because it allows, in my opinion, the system to boot faster and more
efficiently.
Be ABSOLUTELY sure to create a 'boot' disk while you're installing
Mandrake. In the event that something happens to your boot loader, or
you're working on windows and wipe your MBR, where LILO and GRUB live, you
will need that boot disk to be able to get back into Linux and reinstall
your boot loader program.
If you need any more assistance don't hesitate to holler.
--
Mark
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On Sat, 19 Aug 2000, Lance Dow wrote:
> Hi there
>
> In spite of all the horror stories I've been reading here in this forum
> over the last couple of weeks, I've decided to install Linux-Mandrake 7.1
> on my PC.
>
> In preparation for this event I've been doing a lot of RTFM-ing (reading
> manuals and HOWTOs, for those who need a translation). One idea that
> appeals to me is having separate partitions for /, /boot, /home, etc. While
> the FMs are full of useful detail, they all seem to *just* fall short of
> answering my question. So I turn to the Linux-newbie brains trust for
> assistance.
>
> Right. I have a 13.6G disk drive which I want to set up as a dual-boot
> system. Once I've got Linux running, I plan to copy the Windows files from
> my existing drive onto the FAT32 partition of the new drive. My Windows
> system currently has a 3.2G disk partitioned as 2G and 1.2G (roughly). I
> have a lot of spare room on this so I think I can get by with a single 3G
> FAT32 partition on the new disk.
>
> [On reflection, this might not work as I'm still using Win95. I seem to
> recall this not being able to handle partitions over 2G.]
>
> So, with around 10G at my disposal for Linux, my first question is "How big
> do I need to make the individual partitions to use this space efficiently
> and effectively?"
>
> The second question is, having created all these partitions, how does the
> install program know which is which, so that what needs to go into /home
> (for example) actually goes to the right partition?
>
> As a Linux newbie I'm likely to want to install everything that comes with
> the distro, and probably install and try lots of other stuff as the months
> go by. I'd like to create an environment that doesn't make this any more
> difficult than it needs to be.
>
> For what it's worth my current system is three years old and uses an AMD K6
> 233 with 64M of RAM. I expect to upgrade it in the next few months to
> something like an Athlon 700 with maybe 128M of RAM.
>
> I look forward to your learned responses. Thanks in advance.
>
> Regards
>
> (Another) Lance
>
>
>
>
>
