trying to install linux

[Ross62]

I have vista installed on my pc I have partioned the hdd 3GB [drive L] When installing linux Iam having trouble loading linux into drive L well Iam not sure if it will insall in drive L or into the c drive where vista is installed I am worried it mite reformat all of my hdd Iam new to this

[gogalthorp]

1) 3 Gigs is very tight I'm not sure how much will fit.

2) you can not install into a "drive" you need reduce the Windows partition and leave free space. Suse normally creates 3 partitions 1-swap (normally 2xram) 2-root (mounted as /) and 3-home (mounted as /home)

I'd recommend at least 10 gig free to hold Suse if you want to play with all the goodies like 3-d desktops. You might get by with 8 if you don't store much data.

[Ross62]

Thanks for the responce gogalthorp

I may not use the right terminology [drive] but what I have done is reduce the size of the c: "drive" the hard drive inside the pc,was 160 GB partitioned it now c: "drive" [where vista is installed and other prog] 112GB ,L: "drive" 16GB where I want to install linux ,unallocated 30GB so all these drives are on 1 hard drive, installing suse 10.2 but i not sure how to load linux in the partition "L" because in the set up after putting dvd in the dvd drive it does not ask where to install it

[gogalthorp]

There should be no L

MS has screwed everyone up with their terminology. At the moment you should have one partition of 112 gig. If you have a second partition of 16 gig then you can not install Linux in it. Linux wil install itself in the 30 gig unpartitioned area.

At a certain point of the install you will be asked if you want to change the partitioning scheme At that point you can make choices about the size type number of partitions etc. You can even choose to overwrite the "L" partition But it won't be called that. That is MS terminology. By default Suse will take all unallocated space. You must have at least two paritions 1) Swap 2)root in which case the home directory will be taken from the root partition. But there are a lot of good reasons to have the third partition mounted as home. This keeps your personal files away from the system files.

I actually have a forth I mount as VM to hold the virtual machines from VMware Server. This is where my XP lives as a VM. I can run both Linux and XP at the same time even copy and paste between them. Very cool.