couple install questions...

[phantommaggot]

i just got my new OS HDD setup and i kept a 10 gig partition for trying out different distros..

i think id like to try debian first since im a mint user and eventually mint will have a debian base version.

so.. questions are..

can i install debian without installing anything for boot (like having it not put GRUB on the MBR... just skipping that step)

also, i made my /home folder for mint seperate, id like to share it with debian..
how would i do this without debian reformatting the /home folder or confusing/slowing down the different distros

thanks

[Jonathan183]

i just got my new OS HDD setup and i kept a 10 gig partition for trying out different distros..

can i install debian without installing anything for boot (like having it not put GRUB on the MBR... just skipping that step)

also, i made my /home folder for mint seperate, id like to share it with debian..
how would i do this without debian reformatting the /home folder or confusing/slowing down the different distros

thanks

I don't use debian but there is likely to be an option to not install the bootloader. To be honest I would let the OS install the bootloader in the way it wants to and sort things out after the install has finished. That way you know you have good boot parameters for the new OS.

You should then be able to paste into the grub menu options for each OS. I have started just adding an entry to each grub menu to link to other grub menus ... it looks something like this ...

title Other grub menu eg on sda5
root (hd0,4)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

For the home areas ... you may be able to get the distros to share the home area but its probably not a great idea. Are you really that short of disk space?

[phantommaggot]

I don't use debian but there is likely to be an option to not install the bootloader. To be honest I would let the OS install the bootloader in the way it wants to and sort things out after the install has finished. That way you know you have good boot parameters for the new OS.

You should then be able to paste into the grub menu options for each OS. I have started just adding an entry to each grub menu to link to other grub menus ... it looks something like this ...

title Other grub menu eg on sda5
root (hd0,4)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

For the home areas ... you may be able to get the distros to share the home area but its probably not a great idea. Are you really that short of disk space?

not THAT short on space lol
my home folder has all my stuff in it... i wouldnt mind being able to use it.
it has its own partition

the whole drive is parted as follows
dev/sda1 NTFS XP PRO 50 GB
dev/sda2 extended 238 GB
--dev/sda5 ext3 10 GB linux filesystem
--dev/sda6 SWAP 2 GB
--dev/sda7 226 GB ext3 /home
--dev/sda8 10gb not formatted

[Jonathan183]

not THAT short on space lol
my home folder has all my stuff in it... i wouldnt mind being able to use it.
it has its own partition

the whole drive is parted as follows
dev/sda1 NTFS XP PRO 50 GB
dev/sda2 extended 238 GB
--dev/sda5 ext3 10 GB linux filesystem
--dev/sda6 SWAP 2 GB
--dev/sda7 226 GB ext3 /home
--dev/sda8 10gb not formatted

Its a large /home partition ... the thing is that in addition to all the stuff you put on there as user data there are also hidden folders which control configurations. I try to keep the real 'user data' stuff separate from the system stuff. You could put documents, music etc on a separate partition for data that you can easily share with linux or windows if you want.
There is no right way to partition but some setups have more cons than pros. I'm sure there are people who share home areas with different distros ... I'm just not one of them. It could be me approaching it with too much caution but all it seems to cost me at the moment is a bit of disk space.

[phantommaggot]

ya, i forgot about those when i parted my drive .. had i thought id have made that a 10 gig part and made the rest extra space. ..

given im just gonna play around with it to see how much different it is, and what can be done with it (basically trying to decide if id want to switch to mint debian when its released)

on the other hand i have 2 other hard drives i should be able to mount and take data from ^_^

[Jonathan183]

It's your call ... but the PartedMagic CD will let you resize the home partition if you do want to separate things out so you still have the option if you need it.

[phantommaggot]

ya, thats not a bad plan
how much space should i keep for my main distros /home

ill probably install as much stuff as i would if i were using windows
id like to get starcraft running with wine, unreal tournament works with linux (i had it installed on ubuntu for a long time) and open arena, vid editing stuff... who knows what else...

so ya, how big should i leave my home part, i can move all kinds of stuff over to this 160 GB i have so i can make sure i do a good job of sizing it..

[Jonathan183]

ya, thats not a bad plan
how much space should i keep for my main distros /home

ill probably install as much stuff as i would if i were using windows
id like to get starcraft running with wine, unreal tournament works with linux (i had it installed on ubuntu for a long time) and open arena, vid editing stuff... who knows what else...

so ya, how big should i leave my home part, i can move all kinds of stuff over to this 160 GB i have so i can make sure i do a good job of sizing it..

I don't play games on my PC so I can't really help in terms of size requirements. I would say most distros can manage with less than 50GB. I'm not sure how your games will install but bad thinks start to happen if you run out of space in the root ... probably worse than if you run out of space in the home area.

I'd probably increase the root to 20GB ... leave 10GB between root and swap and reduce home to 50GB and see how you get on. If you find root gets short of space you have 10GB to expand into (before you need to move partitions around). If you find root remains pretty empty you can move the swap back down and expand home into that area if you need it. You should find 50GB is more than enough to try out a distro ... if you do that at the top end of the disk you can expand the home area up to that point.

Just because you have the extra disk space does not mean you need to use it straight away ... you can also copy a partition before you attempt something you may want to undo later. Having the spare capacity gives you lots of options ... and you may find these more useful than a large home area.

Keep in mind these are just my thoughts, and partitioning is a personal thing really. There are no right answers ... and have fun with the games.

[phantommaggot]

ya, i get what your saying
i may reinstall anyways.. im having a stupid problem with my sound, i installed xmms and open arena and my sound took a dump.. it went from clear and nice to scratchy on some stuff and just plain bad on other...

my real problem is my 160 gb drive, i partioned it with gparted and it wont allow me to write to it.. but im sure ill figure that out.. i need to move my stuff before i wipe linux again..

[Jonathan183]

ya, i get what your saying
i may reinstall anyways.. im having a stupid problem with my sound, i installed xmms and open arena and my sound took a dump.. it went from clear and nice to scratchy on some stuff and just plain bad on other...

my real problem is my 160 gb drive, i partioned it with gparted and it wont allow me to write to it.. but im sure ill figure that out.. i need to move my stuff before i wipe linux again..

I was really talking about moving partitions before you start filling them up too much not a re-install !
Have you formatted the 160GB drive NTFS? I'd look at the output of fdisk -l and contents of /etc/fstab. Hopefully you should get some clues from that why you are struggling with write access. The other thing to check is can you write to it when booted from the PartedMagic CD?

Just seen your other post ... guess you will close this one off ... above info still applies in terms of fdisk -l and fstab contents ... the only other think I'd expect to get problems with is file ownership ... chmod 777 (read/write/execute access for everyone) cures that ... I'm sure I've seen a chmod by numbers somewhere. Anyway a PartedMagic CD boot (use the disk mount utility and write a text file to the disk) will prove its not a hardware/partition problem - if you need to.