Need help installing linux with xp

Im having trouble installing linux red hat 9 and have looked for help on other forums with no results. To save my fingers Ill paste some of whats been discusses in hopes someone will know what can be done to resolve the issue.

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dementeddogz Posted: Mar 17 2004, 10:14 AM


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Im running a prepacked version of windows XP home and am looking on how to install Linux Red Hat 9 on the same computer keeping windows xp with the option to duel boot between the two.

Im not too familiar with linux and am in college about to take my first linux class and would like to install it to get a better feel for it.

Any help on what steps are needed in order to get the desired results would be appreciated. Ive only installed linux once on a completely blank pc so this is somewhat new to me.

serz Posted: Mar 17 2004, 10:25 AM


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If you have free-space to install Red Hat, great. If not, you will have to reszie your Windows partition in order to make some room for your RH install.

After all this, you setup the bootloader so you can dual-boot.




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dementeddogz Posted: Mar 17 2004, 10:30 AM



dementeddogz Posted: Mar 17 2004, 11:27 AM


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Ive managed to start the install and ofcourse got stuck on the partitioning. It wont automatically partition saying I need to create a /root. So i tried manually to insert a new partition again with no luck. Am I maybe missing something? And I think xp was on a ntfs partition

x86processor Posted: Mar 17 2004, 11:39 AM


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You can manually create your partitions for Linux

1/ Choose custom paritioning for experts
2/ Click on free space->New
(creating swap memory)
Choose file system type as "Swap" and allocate memory equivalent to twice your RAM memory. For example if you have 256 MB RAM, give your swap memory size as "512MB".
3/ Click on the remaining free space -> New
Choose filesystem type as "ext3", choose mount point "/" and select use maximum memory for this allocation (meaning, you are asking the system to use the remaining full memory for the root ("/") file system

Note: You should see the bottom of the list of partitions. Your first paritition maybe /dev/hda1 with file system type ntfs for your windoze,

Check this link too:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Installati...WTO/index.html

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dementeddogz Posted: Mar 17 2004, 12:03 PM


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Thanks for the help but I got the following errors

Partition table on /dev/hda is inconsistent



When trying to set a swap I get

Could not allocate requested partitions
partioning failed: Could not allocate partitions.

Im getting the same with ext3 but managed to set no value and allow it to fill to maximum and tried to proceed with install anyways with out the swap partition. It went through but as soon as it tried to install i get an error about trying to transfer install image , you are probably out of disk space.

Any ideas?

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That about covers the more relevant posts. Any help would be appreciated.

You need to resize your windows XP partition to make room for another OS. Since your using win xp chances are you have an NTFS partition. Mandrake can resize these partitions during install.

so I would download mandrake cd 1. start the install resize the windows partition and create the necessary partitions for linux typically a swap partition and a / (root) partition. People have loads of preferences on this but I wouldn't worry as I can guarantee you'll be formatting it again in a few months once you've learnt a bit and probably trying a few other distros.

Then once these are formatted and setup. cancel the install and pop the redhat cd in.
Make sure you format the linux partitions again in case mandrake left any stuff on them.

I would recommend getting the new Fedora instead of using the older RH. Or even trying a CD based distro to get yourself familiarised. why not try Morphix or Gnoppix.

Just downloaded mandrake and tried installing with no luck. I tried to boot from cd and it only went into windows. So i tried running the cd a mandrake screen came up , clicked to install, it said it would reboot the pc and begin install. It did nothing :\

Is your pc set to boot from the CDROM in the BIOS?
If it is, is the CD you made bootable? how did you make it?

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Is your pc set to boot from the CDROM in the BIOS?

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Yep

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how did you make it?

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Just put em in the cd and hit to write em to the cd. It would run as a cd but not from boot.

As stated above by kpzani, it sounds like you BIOS is not setup to look at the cd-rom before the hard drive before bootup. Thus the machine looks at the hard drive and finds something to load before even looking at the CD as an option to boot from. Do a search on google for your type of machine and how to get into BIOS. Basically you need to hit a 'f' something (like f2 or f3 or f4 it's different for different machines) before the machine starts to boot into Windows. From there you can find a section on boot order. Make sure that it looks at the CD-Rom before the hard drive.

Maybe i wasnt clear account it to lack of sleep . I did go into bios and set it so it would boot from cd before anything else

maybe this post wont help much but it seems partition magic is what you need. I know it costs money but it is the easiest way to change the size of a windows partition. That is what I used when I was dual booting. If spending money isnt an option make a bootable floppy it sounds like the cdrom you made isnt bootable. Once you boot off the floppy you should be able to launch the setup program and partition your harddrive that way. Any way if this was any help I'm glad. Goodluck.

I know the slackware site has a bunch of bootable floppys you can download. I've had to do this before.

I may try partition magic or see if my instructor has a copy of something. was just wary about using it after all the posts ive read about people messing up their pc with it.

I've used it and it worked fine. The only other way is to resize it with some other tool. Partition magic is just a good tool for resizeing. I Really suggest going out and buying a second harddrive. Its a little expensive yes but it can save a lot of heartache. anyway goodluck and enjoy linux when you get it up and running.