Getting Started

[grahama]

I have downloaded and burnt my 10.2 CD's and now need advice on what to do.
I have a P4 3g machine with 2 drives having 4 NTFS partitions all with greater than 20gb free space. Windows XP installed on drive C:
I don't want to destroy my existing installation but I don't know what to expect when I start the Linux installation. Will my XP setup be affected ? Will it install onto NTFS ? Will I have boot options when I start up ? I have had a lot of experience from MS DOS up but this is a step into the unknown.
Beginners help greatly appreciated. tutorial attachments to my email.

[cyberinstru]

This should help you: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1751

[gogalthorp]

You will need to adjust partition sizes or remove one of the exiting partitions. It is best to install Suse into free unformated unpartitioned space. The install will create the needed patitions. It will not install into a NTFS partition. With a normal installation the installer will create three partitions
1)swap 2X installed RAM
2)root also known as /
3 home

root contains the system files and most program files
home contains directories for each user and is where personal data and configuration is stored.

root need to be a min of 5-6 gig but depends on exactly what you intend to install. I recommend a min of 10 Gig with a max of about 20

home as much as you think you will need.

swap is twice RAM

So in general you should free up at least 15-20 Gig for the install.

Also for simplicity you should install on the primary hard drive. You can install on the secondary or divy thing up any arbatrary way but you can run into probelms. Those problems can be fixed but it can be a bit intemidating to a newbee.