Warrl
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/