linux partition/dual boot

[wallsfd949]

Sorry if this is a simple question, but I have a lot of specifics and am heavily reliant on the data on my machine.

Project :
Add linux (possibly Redhat) to my XP box.

Specifics:
2.533 Ghz, 2-120 GB hard disks (master/slave), Master is 65% full, slave is used for Adobe DV projects and is currently empty. Both drives are formated NTFS
1GB, Firewire, DVD+/-RW
XP Home edition, MS wireless keyboard/mouse hooked to USB KVM - 1 usb port used on machine for Keyboard/Mouse connection.
I want to set aside 15GB somewhere for Linux

Questions:
1) Do I partition my master and setup a linux partition or is it better/safer to partition the empty disk and control which OS boots in the bios?
if so, should I use something like Partition Magic or other?

2) Has anyone used Cinelerra and if so, what has your experience been?
since I want to try DV editing in Linux, can I use space on the non linux partition of one of the Hard disks to store DV with it being a NTFS drive?

3) I may also try aliaswavefront maya for linux (though I'm having a hard time finding the personal learning ed. for linux). It states that software requriremnets are RH 7.3 or RH 8. Then would there be a problem with RH 9? - This is provided I can find or order a PLE.

4) What are the risks of loosing data on the XP side?

5) Will my keyboard and mouse plugged into my USB KVM work in linux? It is just the same as having a USB keyboard and USB mouse plugged into 1 USB port.

-thanks

 

[wallsfd949]

bump

 

[FlasHBurN]

Bump for you


edit : I have a question to add. Does Linux support NTFS or am I stuck with Fat32?

 

[coolroyboy2]

Check this out . Read through this and alot of you question will be answered.

Edit- another good place to read. Link

 

[Nothinman]

1) Do I partition my master and setup a linux partition or is it better/safer to partition the empty disk and control which OS boots in the bios?
if so, should I use something like Partition Magic or other?

Doesn't really matter, it depends on how you want to do it. You can boot both Windows with LILO or GRUB or you can use the BIOS if you like. Most Linux installers have decent partitioning tools.

2) Has anyone used Cinelerra and if so, what has your experience been?
since I want to try DV editing in Linux, can I use space on the non linux partition of one of the Hard disks to store DV with it being a NTFS drive?

My experience was poor because I have no DV experience =)

In general Linux NTFS support is poor, reading works ok but writing is guaranteed to be deterimental to your data's health. There was a new NTFS wrapper lately though that uses Windows own NTFS.sys driver for the real work (like NTFS4DOS) but I can't remember it's name and I havn't used it as I have no Windows partitions to test it on. If I remember I'll post it.

3) I may also try aliaswavefront maya for linux (though I'm having a hard time finding the personal learning ed. for linux). It states that software requriremnets are RH 7.3 or RH 8. Then would there be a problem with RH 9? - This is provided I can find or order a PLE.

I could never find it either, if you have a current license maybe call them and ask if you can get a copy to try. Chances of it working on RH9 are good, it's not very different from RH8. But there is a chance it won't work depending on the shared library versions.

4) What are the risks of loosing data on the XP side?

There's always the possibility, but most of the problems come from people not reading things properly.

5) Will my keyboard and mouse plugged into my USB KVM work in linux? It is just the same as having a USB keyboard and USB mouse plugged into 1 USB port.

I would guess yes, but I have little experience with USB.

 

[FlasHBurN]

So for my Linux partition I should definitely have it as a FAT32 partition?

 

[Nothinman]

Not for where the OS is, you need a Linux filesystem (probably ext3). Drivers for NTFS and FAT are being written for compatibility, but neither are suitable for any of the Linux system partitions.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Ok that makes sense, since you need to have the linux install on a seperate partition anyway. Thanks for your help!

 

[juggalo4ever]

I just put my XP system on a dual boot and I have a few sugestions for you!

1. back up everything on your system
2. reformat hard drive
3. make ONE partition using 100% of the drive
4. install windows
5. install linux (I used mandrake 9.2) it broke up my partition for me

I made the mistake of makeing more then one partition and had to restart everything to get it to work! hope that helps

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: juggalo4ever
...
3. make ONE partition using 100% of the drive
...
I made the mistake of makeing more then one partition and had to restart everything to get it to work! hope that helps

This is not, in general, good advice. Mandrake includes an NTFS partition resizer with its installer. Not every distribution does this (most don't, in fact). And even so, such resizers are not foolproof. It's better and more generally useful to create a single primary partition not equal to the whole drive during the Windows install and leave the rest as free space. Any distro's auto-partitioner should be able to handle that. Better yet, take 30 minutes to do some web research on what partitions are and how the PC boot process works. Then, the whole mysterious "dual-boot setup" becomes trivial.

 

[hkctr]

FWIW, this is what I did. I moved my WinXP disk to the be the slave (hdb) and made my linux drive the master (hda). I formated a primary FAT partition at the back of the linux drive to hold common data files for both OS's. I installed linux in the remaining space, 5 distros so far and boot everything with grub. All the distros share the same swap partition (also primary) and the distros are in a large extended partition, each installed in a single logical drive (/). I did it this way because if I ever screwed anything up bad or a drive fails, I would always have a drive that would boot and an OS that works. If the linux drive dies, I just move the jumpers on the WinXP slave to master and boot as usual. If WinXP dies, I could still boot into linux.

 

[FlasHBurN]

How do I get GRUB setup?

 

[hkctr]

Easy way to set up grub is to let the first distro you install do it for you. RH or Fedora uses grub by default and will set up the grub entries for WinXP automatically. For every distro you install thereafter, don't install a boot loader. Just edit the grub.conf file and add the entries manually. This is easier than it sounds.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Originally posted by: hkctr
Easy way to set up grub is to let the first distro you install do it for you. RH or Fedora uses grub by default and will set up the grub entries for WinXP automatically. For every distro you install thereafter, don't install a boot loader. Just edit the grub.conf file and add the entries manually. This is easier than it sounds.

I am currently downloading the 'woody' distro of Debian, will that setup grub for me?

 

[Nothinman]

woody uses lilo, grub is available as a package if you want to install it after the initial install though.

Debian probably isn't the best to start with, have you looked over the install docs to make sure you're up to it?

 

[hkctr]

I would stick to one of the "mainstream" distros if this is your first linux install (RH, Mandrake or SuSE). If you insist on using debian, you may want to check out the Libranet 2.7 free distro and download that. It is debian with a few administrative tools that may help you get started. Also has friendly forums that you can go to for help.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
woody uses lilo, grub is available as a package if you want to install it after the initial install though.

Debian probably isn't the best to start with, have you looked over the install docs to make sure you're up to it?

I did glance over it, and was recommended it as a starting point for Linux. Is there another distro of Linux I should start with instead?

 

[hkctr]

Once people get linux installed and booted, most of the problems revolve around the video, audio, modems or network cards. If the hardware in you box is linux friendly, your chances of having RH, Mandrake, etc. configure things automatically and correctly for you increase dramatically. I prefer RH9 or Fedora Core as a beginning distro. Some prefer Mandy or SuSE. If you go to CompUSA/BestBuy you can buy a boxed versions SuSE personal edition for $40. SuSE comes with a fairly decent manual that should be of great help. If go the download (i.e. free) route, you'll be visiting lots of forums for help or booting into XP to read the online docs.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian does very little hardware setup for you, you'll have to configure most things yourself. But the appeal of Debian is that once it's setup it's setup for life and debconf handles a good part of software setup for you. It's not the easiest to start with by any means but it's the easiest to work with in the long run.

 

[FlasHBurN]

I used PartitionMagic to resize one of my partitions...I now have an extra partition (Drive L) of unformatted space, should that be all I need to do before I install Linux onto it? Oh and I decided to use Suse Linux first to see how it goes.

 

[easternerd]

Linux Paritions are not fat 32 or NTFS..
they are EXT2 /EXT3 / F2S / Journalling system etc...
i prefer EXT3 personally.. its been stable..
You can read NTFS partitions with some addons..
and some releases come with builtin support for read partions..
but Fat16/32 is not a problem.

 

[FlasHBurN]

Ok, should I go ahead and use Partition Magic to format that space to EXT3? Or should I just let the SUSE Installer do that?

 

[Nothinman]

Doesn't matter, but remember you need atleast 2 partitions for Linux, one for the root filesystem (/) and one for swap.

 

[FlasHBurN]

The swap should be around a gig in size if I have about a gig of memory, correct?

 

[Nothinman]

That's recommended, it really depends on the load you plan on the system under. If you have the disk space, give it a gig and don't worry about it.