Qns on partition and installing

[vitalstrike82]

Hi,
i have a few qns to ask b4 i start installing suse linux on my hard disk.

Currently this is the situation. I have a 80gb hard disk. I reserve 50 gig for the installation. The rest of the memory are free space, no partition on that unused space.

Here i have a few things in doubt and i like to list out these qns..

1) The freespace on my hard disk, should i partition the free space on my hard disk, or should i leave it as it is? Because on the forum, some one advice me to delete the partition before installing the suse..

2) I have already install win os onto my hard disk, which is on C:. If i install the suse on the free space or on the new partition, will my machine be able to dual boot both OS, so i can choose which os to boot

3) Do i need to install a program like boot magic so i can dual boot, or after installing suse, there will be a choice to choose which OS to boot without installing any dual boot software?

Sorry to ask so many qns. I still quite new to this area. Please help thanks...

[budman7]

Q1, when you do the install, Suse should see the free space and recommend a partition plan that will use the free space.
Q2, Yes, Suse sets up dual boot by default.
Q3, Grub will be able to boot both Suse and XP.

[vitalstrike82]

Thanks for sharing your valuable knowledge. I can install with no worries.
This thread is close.

[Jonathan183]

Thanks for sharing your valuable knowledge. I can install with no worries.
This thread is close.

One other thing to consider if you want to dual boot is where to store shared data. If you want to be able to read & write data from Windows and Linux you need a FAT32 data partition. I suggest you setup the data partition first and let Linux work out how best to use the remaining disk space.

[vitalstrike82]

hi,
so do you mean before i install linux into my hard drive, for eg: my C: already contains the win OS. Then i have the partion the free space in C into 2 parts, one for the share data and the other for linux installation?

I have already install linux, with C for windows and the other partition for linux. Can it still be share data between win and linux?

[devils casper]

I have already install linux, with C for windows and the other partition for linux. Can it still be share data between win and linux?

Yes. SuSe supports NTFS read only access out of box. Install ntfs-3g package to enable NTFS write access.

[Jonathan183]

No - you are better off leaving the windows partitions as they are (this reduces the chance of data loss).
You are better creating a separate FAT32 data partition for your shared data. Then install Linux and let it decide the best use of the remaining disc space.
As an eg I have an 80GB hard drive with 2GB (FAT32 - for DOS etc), 20GB (NTFS with windows), the rest of the disc is an extended partition with about 28GB data (FAT32), about 25GB for Linux, and about 300MB linux swap.
I would leave the windows bits alone and specify the data drive size.

Hope this helps ...

[devils casper]

If you one hasn't created separate partition for data sharing then I wont suggest to create it now. Creating new partition will change partition numbers of all other partitions and Linux will not boot up after that.
ntfs-3g package is pretty stable and I dont think sharing NTFS partition having Windows OS will cause any trouble.
Log in as root and execute fdisk -l command. Post output here. Lets check what could be without re-installing Linux.

[Jonathan183]

If you one hasn't created separate partition for data sharing then I wont suggest to create it now. Creating new partition will change partition numbers of all other partitions and Linux will not boot up after that.
ntfs-3g package is pretty stable and I dont think sharing NTFS partition having Windows OS will cause any trouble.
Log in as root and execute fdisk -l command. Post output here. Lets check what could be without re-installing Linux.

Just to clarify ... my suggestion was to:-
1. leave windows alone (on existing NTFS partition)
2. create fat32 data partition (so windows and Linux will be able to write to a common area) for storing user data eg openoffice documents etc.
3. install Linux on the remainder of the disc.

By doing this Windows can read & write to its own area and shared data area. Linux can read everything on the disc and write to its own area and shared data area. By default Linux can read from NTFS partitions but not write to them - I suggest sticking with these defaults as writing to NTFS partitions can cause problems.

[devils casper]

OP has installed Linux already and I wont suggest creating new partition before checking Partition Table ( output of fdisk -l ) command myself.

By default Linux can read from NTFS partitions but not write to them - I
suggest sticking with these defaults as writing to NTFS partitions can cause problems.

As I mentioned earlier, ntfs-3g package is stable now. Its pre-installed in Fedora 7 and most of other distros are planning to include it in their next release.