F9 and XP partition

[Jappi]

Hi!

I have a problem installing F9.
I have a Sony Vaio and I just downgrade it to XP. One the same disk I created C: and D: (the second one is empty, and I would like to install linux here).
I start F9 installation from DVD, but when I arrive to the partition screen, it sees only sda having the total size of my HD. I get error on any options... and of course I don't want to remove all partitions, as I want to keep WinXP and set a dual boot.

Any help is very appreciate.

[JN4OldSchool]

hello,

you will need to take your Linux partition to be back to free space first.

Download this:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

and burn it to CD like any other ISO image then boot it.

You can then shrink your NTFS partition(s) and just leave the extra as free space. If you want to share a partition with Fedora and XP you can also create a third NTFS partition (like you thought you did with D: ) and Fedora and XP can both read and write from this.

After you have the free space then boot the Fedora DVD and use that partitioned to create whatever scheme you want, or just stick with default LVM if you wish.

I know this is confusing you even more, but just DL and boot the GParted CD, you will understand. :)

[scotty38]

I can't remember whose signature I found this on so I take no credit for it but you may want to look here:

Info (http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html#install)

[CraigWatson]

You don't necessarily need to shrink the XP partition, as you already have one partition spare where you want to install Fedora - if my understanding of your setup is correct, you want to install Fedora into your D: partition on Windows.

You can select the "Create a custom layout" option on the dropdown menu within the Fedora installer, then delete the second partition (if you can access it in Windows as D: it'll be using the NTFS or FAT32 file systems, both of which won't support Linux permissions). Re-create the partition using the EXT3 file system with a mount-point of "/" and proceed as normal.

You'll want to offset some space for a swap partition (Linux's equivalent of Window's pagefile) so create a third partition of roughly speaking double the amount of RAM in your system and set this to be the "swap" type.

For the bootloader, you can set GRUB to over-write the bootloader of the drive and then add XP to GRUB (you should have that option later on in the installer - XP will appear as "Other") :)

[Jappi]

[QUOTE=JN4OldSchool]hello,

you will need to take your Linux partition to be back to free space first.

Download this:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

and burn it to CD like any other ISO image then boot it.

Thank you, but I'm already stacked... :-(
I found a tar instead of a iso
Could you, pls, tell me which file to DL?

Thank you

[Jappi]

[QUOTE=CraigWatson]You don't necessarily need to shrink the XP partition, as you already have one partition spare where you want to install Fedora - if my understanding of your setup is correct, you want to install Fedora into your D: partition on Windows.

You can select the "Create a custom layout" option on the dropdown menu within the Fedora installer, then delete the second partition (if you can access it in Windows as D: it'll be using the NTFS or FAT32 file systems, both of which won't support Linux permissions). Re-create the partition using the EXT3 file system with a mount-point of "/" and proceed as normal.

OK, I see the partitions now, but I need little more help in order not to delete the good one.

Now I have:
type size start end
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 ntfs 4769 1 608 (windows wanted something of 5GB, don't know why)
/dev/sda2 ntfs 57224 609 7903 (I put 60 GB for XP, I suppose it's this one)
/dev/sda3 Extended 52478 7904 14593
/dev/sda5 ntfs 52478 7904 14593

which of the last two (sda3, sda5) should I delete to proceed?

Thank you

[Jappi]

one more question:
I read somewhere that /boot should be at the beginning ot the HD. How can i do it now?

[CraigWatson]

which of the last two (sda3, sda5) should I delete to proceed?

Delete both sda3 and sda5 - sda3 is a Logical (Extended) partition, which means that it can have many partitions inside it, so sda3 is just a container, with sda5 being the "real" partition that you see.

I read somewhere that /boot should be at the beginning ot the HD. How can i do it now?

That's just a guideline for partition layouts, you don't have to have /boot at the beginning of the drive. If you install with your current layout, GRUB (the Linux bootloader) will be written to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the drive, and you can just redirect GRUB to look at the XP partition when you boot :)

// Edit:

You might want to create a fourth partition using NTFS to use as a data-swap area between your operating systems, as ext3 isn't readable by Windows, but you can mount NTFS partitions within Linux - my own laptop is set-up for tri-booting as follows:

20Gb - Windows Vista
20Gb - Windows XP
20Gb - Fedora 9
50Gb - Data

You can also move your My Documents folder to another location within Windows so your My Documents shortcut will still work.

[markkuk]

I read somewhere that /boot should be at the beginning ot the HD.
Only if you are installing to a very old (>10 years) machine whose BIOS doesn't support LBA addressing.

[Jappi]

Thank you, but I have still questions:

After deleting sda3 and sda5, how many partitions should I create?

swap (about 4 GB? I have 2 GB RAM)
ext3 starting at / for Fedora (about 20 GB?)
/boot (do I need it or not if I'll install the GRUB as you said?)
data-sharing (NTFS or FAT32?)

Does the order matters?

Do I have to format all these new partitions?

Sorry for so many questions, but after spending 2 full days on XP (download and install drivers...), I would like not to risk to delete everything.

I didn't know I could keep Vista and XP, but I'm definitively happier with XP.

[CraigWatson]

I would create these partitions - there's no real need for a separate boot partition:

4Gb would be for swap
20Gb is plenty for Fedora (mount point: / and file system: ext3)
whatever you have left for Data (file syetem: NTFS)

You may also want to shrink your XP partition (I have XP Media Center Edition running perfectly happily on 20Gb) but I wouldn't do that until you have to.

You'll need to format all of the partitions, and you'll need to add a line to the /etc/fstab file to mount the NTFS Data partition at boot-time (details are in this post (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/forum/showpost.php?p=1014249&postcount=3)) - you can also repeat the procedure for your XP partition if you need to.

[Jappi]

OK, but what about the /home partition?
where will it be?

I have programs looking for stuff in /home and I would like to use them in the new laptop.
I have used linux for many years, but never installed it by myself.

[CraigWatson]

The Linux filesystem is basically a tree, with mountpoints being where drives are attached within that tree, and "/" being the root of the tree. Your /home partition will be created (as the name specifies) within the /home directory on the filesystem.

It can be on another partition (or indeed another physical drive), however if you don't specifically mount a partition to that directory, it will be created as a subdirectory within the root. The same applies to /boot and any other folder :).

When you mount other partitions, you're just giving them a mountpoint within your own filesystem - Linux doesn't have the Windows concept of drive letters :).

[Jappi]

OK, sorry for so many questions. My main goal is to have something similar to my Desktop (not installed by me), that it like this:

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 12188848 7056364 4503140 62% /
/dev/sda9 26205232 5926736 20278496 23% /LIN-TO-WIN
/dev/sda8 34969520 14701875 18438786 45% /LINUX-DATA
/dev/sda1 513468 39236 447728 9% /boot
none 1037376 0 1037376 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda7 53290620 37006456 13533320 74% /home

I mean, I don't need exactly the same, but at least to run the same programs/scripts, etc...

[CraigWatson]

Again, just to re-iterate: /home and /boot will exist, even though it is on the same partition as the rest of the data. Essentially any mount-point is just an ordinary folder within the file system - if you want to you could give /tmp its own partition.

As I said before, the Linux filesystem is like a tree, with the root of the filesystem being "/". Everything else is just regular folders - some folders act as mount-points for other partitions - for exampe, /boot and /home in your desktop example. That doesn't mean that these are always separate partitions, just that whoever setup the machine has mounted a partition to that folder. There is nothing special about the /boot and /home folders other than the data they contain :)

So, /home and /boot will exist on your one-partition installation, just as normal folders rather than partitions. The FAT32 data partition will be the equivalent to your LIN-TO-WIN partition (you can even create the same mount-point if you want it to be exactly the same - just follow the guide I posted but change the name).

[Jappi]

Thank you again, but I'm still here...

It seems that I can't create the Data partition with system type NTFS.
Only options are: efi, ext2, ext3, physical volume (LVM), software RAID, swap, vfat, xfs.

[CraigWatson]

Ah, whoops. my bad.

Try leaving the space blank, installing Fedora as normal, then booting into Windows and creating the partition from there (right-click on My Computer and go to Management, then Disk Management in the left-hand pane).

[Jappi]

do you mean Free Space?

And what about to check/unchek the box for "Force to be a primary partition" and "Encrypt"?
(for this and the other partitions swap ans ext3)

[CraigWatson]

Yep, leave the Data partition as free space for now and create it later in Windows, I forgot that the Fedora installer doesn't create NTFS partitions.

I would leave the "force primary" box unchecked for your Linux partitions (ext3 and swap) - this will condense them into a single Logical partition. Also, leave the "encrypt" box unchecked :)

[Jappi]

Hi!

Finally I did my partitions. I later discovered that F9 can resize partitions in the custom layout, so I decided to resize what corresponded to windows D: (it was empty) and got directly the Data partition already ntfs, then I made the Fedora ones in the Free Space created from resize.
The the installation was straightforward.

Thank you for your patience!

PS: now I have other questions, I'll post new treads soon