Warrl <warrl@blarg.net> wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, John Denning wrote:

...

Greetings -- I want to partition a drive so I can install both Win2K and Linux. I've read I should have a very small partition up front for boot? Is this correct?

Can anyone give me the scoop on what partitions I best create and install what into what? Should I install Win2K first then Linux? And don't install LILO into the MBR?

You're getting into some new territory here. What I've heard about Win2K is that it's something to seriously consider mid to late next year. Never tried it.

First map out how much space you intend to dedicate to Linux, how much you don't care if Linux can't reach, and how much you need to share.

Shared space first: if Linux can read NTFS (don't know) then that's the choice.

Linux can read NTFS, but the writing part of the driver is still experimental. For some people it works, and for others it thrashes the filesystem.

Otherwise if Win2K can read VFAT (WinNT can't) then that's the choice.

It looks like it can. At least my W2k RC2 install has no problems reading my drive D: (/dev/hda5) which is fat32 (vfat).

Only as a last resort should you consider FAT16, and if you are forced to that monstrosity then do it with many small partitions - less than 1 gig each.

That latter is because FAT16 is *horrible* with slack space. At just under 1 gig capacity, disk space is allocated in clusters of 16K. At 1 gig and up to 2 gig, the clusters are 32K. (Over 2 gig - FAT16 won't do at all.) The overwhelming majority of files are 16K or less for the large majority of users, so the extra 16K in each cluster is almost always wasted - a 2-gig partition will in practice store about 5 meg more data than a 990-meg partition. (FAT32 has the same sort of issue but at a different point. If I remember correctly the issue starts to be a similarly serious problem at about 4 million terabytes.)

While you CAN boot Linux off a FAT16 or VFAT partition from within MS-DOS, don't bother trying this within WinNT or Win2K. (You can dual-boot Win2K and an older MS-DOS for the purpose if you want...)

Now, you are correct that you don't put lilo in the MBR. It *cannot* boot WinNT and therefore, presumably, won't be able to boot Win2K. WinNT's bootloader *can* boot lilo from a partition's boot sector, and lilo can from there boot Linux.

It would be worth a try to install Linux first, just to find out if the Win2K install will give you the option of hooking it up; but I'll bet against it.

The RC2 didn't give me that option. It asked whether I wanted to install it on fat32 or ntfs. First I tried to use fat32 and it worked. It didn't even remove lilo from the MBR, and lilo still worked as it should. (And lilo had no problems booting w2k in this setup.) Afterwards I reformatted and reinstalled with NTFS, and this time w2k rewrote the MBR. I haven't tried installing lilo to the MBR after this. Regards Ole -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/

Warrl wrote:

On Mon, 28 Feb 2000, John Denning wrote:

...

Greetings -- I want to partition a drive so I can install both Win2K and Linux. I've read I should have a very small partition up front for boot? Is this correct?

Can anyone give me the scoop on what partitions I best create and install what into what? Should I install Win2K first then Linux? And don't install LILO into the MBR?

You're getting into some new territory here. What I've heard about Win2K is that it's something to seriously consider mid to late next year. Never tried it.

Well, I doubt I'll be considering an 'upgrade' in the near future... ;-)

First map out how much space you intend to dedicate to Linux, how much you don't care if Linux can't reach, and how much you need to share.

Yes, it's best to work out on paper what partitions you're going to create, before you get in there and actually start creating them. I'm not sure exactly what Warrl meant when he said "how much you don't care if Linux can't reach", if by that you mean stuff that Linux can't write to (NTFS) that's fine, but otherwise, Linux should be able to reach every single last byte on your drive...

Shared space first: if Linux can read NTFS (don't know) then that's the choice. Otherwise if Win2K can read VFAT (WinNT can't) then that's the choice. Only as a last resort should you consider FAT16, and if you are forced to that monstrosity then do it with many small partitions - less than 1 gig each.

Linux can *read* NTFS, but write support is still experimental (and I wouldn't advise trying it) and I have no idea what the status of NTFS5 support is. WinNT can read VFAT, contrary to what you just said, as VFAT is merely FAT16 with long filename support. What you probably meant here was FAT32?

That latter is because FAT16 is *horrible* with slack space. At just under 1 gig capacity, disk space is allocated in clusters of 16K. At 1 gig and up to 2 gig, the clusters are 32K. (Over 2 gig - FAT16 won't do at all.) The overwhelming majority of files are 16K or less for the large majority of users, so the extra 16K in each cluster is almost always wasted - a 2-gig partition will in practice store about 5 meg more data than a 990-meg partition. (FAT32 has the same sort of issue but at a different point. If I remember correctly the issue starts to be a similarly serious problem at about 4 million terabytes.)

I agree totally. That was one of the reasons I moved to NTFS for my Windows partitions, because I could fit the data on a 100% full 2GB FAT16 drive into a 1.5GB NTFS drive, with lots of room to spare. That was without compression, and I have twice the apparent capacity. Of course, I haven't used Windows for... let's think... 5 or 6 months now. ;->>>

While you CAN boot Linux off a FAT16 or VFAT partition from within MS-DOS, don't bother trying this within WinNT or Win2K. (You can dual-boot Win2K and an older MS-DOS for the purpose if you want...)

Now, you are correct that you don't put lilo in the MBR. It *cannot* boot WinNT and therefore, presumably, won't be able to boot Win2K. WinNT's bootloader *can* boot lilo from a partition's boot sector, and lilo can from there boot Linux.

Sorry, but this simply isn't true. LILO has absolutely *no* problems *whatsoever* booting my (now unused) NT installation from the MBR. I was worried about trying it the first time, as the HOWTO did imply that it couldn't be done or was very difficult, but it worked easily enough, and has worked ever since.

It would be worth a try to install Linux first, just to find out if the Win2K install will give you the option of hooking it up; but I'll bet against it.

I would do something similar. Use YaST/fdisk to create a small /boot partition at the start of the drive, followed by the main NT partition, then an extended containing everything else. Install Linux, make a bootable floppy (so that you can restore LILO after Win2K has had its way with the MBR) and then install Windows. After that I would uninstall Windows and use the free space for Linux, but you may be different... ;-)

As for the small partition early (for the Linux /boot directory), I think this is a very good idea to get in the habit of - having it separate also makes security a little easier.

Very true. I always keep /boot separate.

However, when is it actually NECESSARY to create a system that will reliably boot? Not often:

(1) If your BIOS won't recognise more than 512 megabytes of your disk space, you almost certainly need 3 to 10 megs within that 512 megabytes for Linux /boot.

(2) If your hard drive, even with LBA, lists at more than 1023 cylinders (8 point something gigabytes), you need to guarantee that the entirety of the contents of the /boot directory is no later than cylinder 1023. The only way to *guarantee* this is to have that directory stored in a partition that is *entirely* wihin the first 1023 cylinders.

(3) If Linux is stored entirely beyond cylinder 1023, then it wouldn't boot. Just carve out a measly 3-10 meg early on, though, and Linux is happy, and other OSes probably won't notice.

Now *within* Linux - that's a whole long discussion Here's what I have:

hda5: 8m /boot 14% used hda6: just under 128m swap -- I'm a firm believer in ample swap space. hda7: 400m / 95% used -- wish it was 600M to 1 gig hda8: 2 gig /usr 82% used -- wish it was 3 gig, I've had to move some things to /home and establish symbolic links

hda9: 100m /tmp 2% used hda10: 100m /var 57% used hda11: 1 gig /home 17% used

And here's what I have: Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on /dev/hda11 1562029 1388747 92557 94% / /dev/hda9 22546 7833 13510 37% /boot /dev/hda2 1686393 1393853 205388 87% /usr /dev/hda7 1019824 523312 496512 51% /games /dev/hda6 1019824 816832 202992 80% /files /dev/hda8 1019824 1015824 4000 100% /backup /dev/hda5 2273164 2097436 175728 92% /programs /dev/hda1 1020095 517603 502492 51% /nt As you can see, I'm running out of space here... Next time I install, my partitions will probably be split up a lot more into /var, /opt, /tmp, etc. as they are above. This is just a remnant from my last install of about a year ago (a boy, have I learnt a lot since then...). How to partition your drive is a very contentious issue, with many opinions floating around. There is no 'correct' way to do it, only good ways and bad ways. The way Warll has it set up is a good way, so I would work from that.

The restrictive parts of this will be fixed as soon as I either succeed, or give up, at recovering some data from a 4-gig Windows partition I accidentally trashed. (Copied a floppy image to /dev/hda1 instead of /dev/fd0)

Ouch! Well, it's only Windows... It's not as if you haven't reinstalled it thousands of times already. Shame about the data though :(

There is a limit to how much you worry about space. The other day I saw an ad listing 30-gig IDE drives for $225. The main reason I have so many partitions is that I'm looking toward security. I have the same division on my firewall (although smaller - the entire drive is only about 1 gig, and now that it's working I"m going to collapse it a lot and put it on a smaller drive.)

Sorry Warrl, I feel really bad after rereading that :( I didn't mean to criticise, as you gave some very good advice, but I just had to make a couple of corrections. Nice work ;-) Chris -- __ _ -o)/ / (_)__ __ ____ __ Chris Reeves /\\ /__/ / _ \/ // /\ \/ / ICQ# 22219005 _\_v __/_/_//_/\_,_/ /_/\_\ -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/