Linux 7.1 installation help plz!!!!

Hello.
I am new to these forumes as well as to Linux. But i really want to learn it.
I have Linux 7.1 (on cd s downloaded so i have no documentation)
and i ahve this problem :
i have 4 disks (1 hard driive thou) , disk 1: win 2000 os installed , (NTFS)
disk 2: 6 gb free space i want linux here(Linux EX)
disk 3: data here and on disk 4 (NTFS)
When i try to install linux workstation....it says i don't have enougt space and i wil need manualy forgmat the partetition. I want to install linux only onto disk 2 and don't want to get evrything else formated.....i mount a /boot poin onto linux partition but i can't go on ...(i tried to sue fdisk adn Disk druid.....)can somone plz help me out ???'
Thx in advance

you are allowed four primary partitions for each hard drive.

assuming that you want all primary partitions (might as well), this will leave you with no separate primary swap partition. this is manageable, but just letting you know.

to get linux installed, boot up the install cd and make sure you select to manually partition. then you can designate your "disk 2" as you call it and then format it as "/" (root) and pick your filesystem (I like ext3, but it's up to you) and check off "force to be primary" (you don't have to do that part, but if you want it to be a primary partition, you will need to do it.
it will warn you about not having a swap partition, but continue anyway and it wil install everything to your newly created / partition.

for more info on partitioning and how it works, see the partitioning page on my guide below.

Linux 7.1? Is that RedHat 7.1?

lol, i figured that. i've seen people do that so many times, i just ignore it now :lol:

Why use Redhat 7.1 now?? when you can use rh 7.3,8.0,9.0??

Well, there is one good reason. 7.1 did not yet use nautilus, but gmc. Sure, gmc wasn't very stable and it didn't look as good as nautilus, but on the other hand it doesn't require a supercomputer to run. So if you have an older computer and want to use GNOME, then 7.1 just might be the way to go. It's not that bad as a system, either. Except that it uses older version of stuff (of course), I'm really fond of it, and two of my servers are still running it, although I've upgraded some programs here and there.

Yeah, thoose packages must include a whole bunch of bugs..

ahem...i an a noob and i think i didn't get how to do what you said yowwwww
i got this screen (i formated disk 2 into a linux ex before with partitiong magic.....) and i type into mount point /root
adn that still doesn'ta llow me to get to the next installation step...next button is still not active....disk 1 adn2 is a pripary partitionwhili disk 3,4 are not.....
some help plz

You're not supposed to mount anything on /root. Although, the /root directory does exist, it is not the root directory. The root directory is the root directory of the VFS, ie. "/", only.

So anyhow, what you will want to do is to create three (or maybe four, I'll get back to that) partitions. Make the first one about 50 MBs or so, and set its mountpoint to /boot. Make the other one 256 MBs or so (how much RAM do you have?) and make it a swap partition.
You might want a home directory partition (this is the fourth partition that I mentioned). The advantage is that if you decide to reinstall (if you accidently destroy something vital and can't figure out of to fix it), or if you want to try out another distro, you can leave the home directory partition in place, and thus retain all your personal files and settings. The bad part is that you can't transfer free space from one file system to another, and more partitions add more fragmentation to the free space. Note that it is optional. If you decide that you want one, make it so large that you leave about 1.5 GBs or so on the HD. Set its mount point to /home.
Then create the root partition. Just set it so that it uses the remaining space on the device and mount it on /.

First of all, though, remove all the partitions on your "disk 2", ie. undo what you have done with PartitionMagic, and then redo it with the native Linux tools on the CD.
When you say "Linux ex", I think that you're really referring to ext2, which is one native Linux filesystem. I think ext2 is the only "native" Linux filesystem that RH7.1 ships with, which is kind of bad. You might want to download a newer version of RedHat, so that you get ext3 instead. The difference between ext2 and ext3 is that ext3 is a journalling filesystem. You will have to know that if you go with ext2, since because Linux caches filesystem data to RAM very aggressively (which gives enormous speed advantages), it is right out dangerous to turn off your computer improperly (ie. by pressing the button without shutting down properly, which can also happen if you get a power-out in your local area). Many times, the filesystem damage can be repared, but not always. Ext3 is protected from such data loss, since it journals all data before it is commited to disk. Of course, that doesn't mean that you should turn off your computer improperly, but at least you won't risk the filesystem by doing so.

sorry i haven't responded, my power has been out for over 24 hours and i don't know how long it will last

i'll be back later to explain more, but dolda is very capable and can help out.