Reformat, but which one??

[tomleighmartin]

dear everyone, I have just booted to Puppy (for the first time in my life) on a 6 y/o amd type with a 40Gb HD, Ram: 512.

I would like to make a permanent install of puppy onto the HD, I have read various pieces on how to install, defraging, repartitioning, differing file systems. However, i am a bit lost.

The computer will be used for e-mail, web browsing, and watching the odd film (films installed on the drive) - I am unsure as to the best combination of file types and partition in order to keep puppy happy and keep some compatibility with the world outside of linux.

For instance, could i have a small partition with the puppy install and setting, and the rest on a format that would be compatible with windows/mac/linux? If so, how do I do this, pls bare in mind that my windows install is running but incomplete.

I have the feeling this will be a really simple problem for someone to help me with, but I am stuck, any help would really appreciated! thank you.

[yancek]

Boot your windows system and run disk defragmenter.
Resize (shrink) your windows partition from within windows. You don't mention which version of windows you have. Maybe you won't be able to do it from withing windows. If you can't you will be able to do it during the Puppy install.
To begin the Puppy install, boot the Puppy CD and when you get to the Desktop, click on the Menu tab in the lower left, mouse up to System and over to Puppy Universal Installer to start.
File systems for Linux are most commonly ext2, ext3, ext4 so you will need to install Puppy on a partition with a Linux formatted filesystem.

Your best first step would be to post your current partition information so you can get more specific advice. Boot the Puppy CD and go to the menu tab and look for terminal or konsole and open that. Enter the command: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L in the command). Post the output here

[Rubberman]

You want to share the data with Windows and Mac? Are they going to run on the same hardware and you want to multi-boot the system? Or are they all remote access systems? If remote, then reformat the entire drive for Linux (ext3 or ext4) and install/run the Samba file server software. Then, both Windows and Mac (or other Linux) users can share files on the system (under your control).