Q: What happens if you have 2 physical hard drives? I'd put XP on one and SuSE on the other, but where does XP wind up? I will be putting up a new machine soon, and would like some advice as to how to do this. (I don't really want XP, but I'm afraid I'm stuck with it. I know that some of my old Windows stuff won't work anymore, and I'll probably have to find a Linux workaround.) --doug At 17:56 03/19/2004 +0000, Vince Littler wrote:
On Friday 19 March 2004 5:21 pm, suse@mniceguy.privasend.com wrote:
I've got a computer store guy who's doing an upgrade on my computer. He knows practically nothing about Linux but wants to learn. I've used Mandrake 8 & RHL 9, but only know a little, graphical basic stuff.
Goal is dual-boot WinXP and SUSE 9.0 Personal, which I bought at retail in a box.
Is there anything we/he need to know/do other than insert the disc after he installs XP and assume/hope YAST will prompt...?
Should we check compatibility, do other stuff first, panic about something else???
I *really* appreciate your help.
-M!
Understand partitioning and provide separate partitons for Linux and Win XP. I
don't have the manuals for Personal, but if they are anything like those for Professional, there should be some good reading on this issue. Read up and understand GRUB, the bootloader, which will work well with the windows boot loader in the right configuration
You have the choice at this point as you are installing everything from scratch, so don't let Win XP ruin your setup by allowing a default install. In particular, do not let Win XP grab the whole HD. If it does, then start over.
I would partition something like this:
40MB Primary partition type ext2 or 3, Linux /boot
40MB Primary partition type FAT32, win xp boot
remainder of the disk is an extended partition with Logical drives
40% of extended partition as logical drive D: type ntfs for Win XP
40% of extended partition as logical drive type reiserfs for Linux /
remainder as swap partition for Linux and odds and ends you might want
Note that this puts Win XP on drive D:, it should install there quite happily - all the NT machines I have had ended up with NT on D: or E:. Using this approach, each operating system gets its own small Primary drive, which helps with booting flexibility and if you do want to change the size of one system, you can leave the boot partitions untouched.
Others will disagree about the proportions I have suggested. I would also change them according to what exactly I wanted to do and how much disk I had. Take it as a starting point only and appreciate that it really is your call.
hth
Vince Littler
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