Dual Boot

[Gen357]

Ild like to know how to install a dual boot system with Windows XP and Linux Mandrake. I already have a Virtual Linux (runs from CD ROM) and it works, suprisingly only crashed twice and loved it.

However I last time I tried to partition (with peanut linux) it messed up my partition table and had to format my hard drive. But I hear Linux has progressed quite alot since a few months ago.

Can anyone suggest any good Partition software that will allow me to do this? And what software would allow me to program in Linux, I already know of PureBasic but something a bit more powerful.

Thanks,
Gen357

[ June 14, 2003: Message edited by: Gen357 ]

[xyle_one]

do you have one drive? or two? I was under the impression that you couldn't partition an ntfs drive without seriousely fooking your system up. maybe someone else can shed some light (i would like to know as well    )

[DJ]

I believe the newest version of Mandrake (9.1) has NTFS Partitioning Capabilities

Dj

[Gen357]

Yes I have one hard drive 40gig or near enough, luckily I have also herd that mandrake supports this, however peanut does not. Thanks for the advice, and I hope to have mandrake installed tomorrow and signed up for the mandrake club within a week.  

[SAJChurchey]

Well, to dual boot, you need to install Windoze first.  If you're using any NT derivative (including XP) you should install the bootloader on the first sector of /boot partition, that should be an option in the installer, although I have never installed Mandrake.

I suggest making one large extended partition and making seperate /boot (make this primary), /usr, /, and /home.  This can help u if u ever want to install another distro, and saves on defragmenting the root partition.

[TheQuirk]

BTW: You have to defrag before partioning with Mandrake9.1.

[SAJChurchey]

No, I meant defragmenting as in the use of the actual root partition over time.  If it fragments, access will to / will become slower, affecting startup times, etc.  It's best to avoid writing to the / too often.  That's why it's a good idea to create more partitions w/ more popular mountpoints like /home and /usr to cut down on access to the / partition.

I'm not sure if we even have defragmenting abilities for Linux filesystems.  It may exist, but is probably complicated to do.

Also, I would recommend ReiserFS.  Improper shutdowns may cause difficulties due to manual scandisk (fsck), but the speed and efficiency of ReiserFS is worth it.  If the distro doesn't automatically support ReiserFS (like RH) you may have to pass the "reiserfs" argument to the kernel at the "boot:" prompt when it boots off the CD like so:

Code: [Select]

[ June 16, 2003: Message edited by: SAJChurchey ]

[Gen357]

I got everything running from a seperate 10 gig hard drive (dunt wanna mess with ntfs hard drive too many bad memories   ), but when i try to connect to the net in mandrake it cant seem to find my modem, windows detects it as a Conexant AccessRunner PCI ADSL WAN Adapter. But other than that everything is running smoothly and I have yet to see mandrake crash.

[TheQuirk]

Huh? I'm talking about the NTFS partion. The Mandrake partioning utility can't defrag NTFS partions.

[SAJChurchey]

Quirk:  You're telling him to defrag the NTFS partition so that he may resize it to fit Linux on there?

Gen:  Is your modem internal or external?  Chanes are that it's a winmodem and will not work unless you can find and compile drivers for it, and you probably will not see Mandrake crash.  Chanes are you will reboot or shut it down b4 you have ur computer on long enough to see Mandrake crash.  I've had uptimes for up to a month, and I've been using various distros for about a year now, and have yet to have Linux crash on me.