How Do I Go About Installing Linux?

[shady_inc]

i have a 40 gb hdd with two paritions and xp installed in one of them.I wish to install linux 7.04 from Digit bootable DVD on second partiton.but i don't want to lose the data on either of the partitions.how do i go about doing it??

I have no experience on even the basics of linux.so can someone plz tell me the exact steps i need to follow...

[QwertyManiac]

The best way is to make an empty partition, preferably the last one, and install Linux on it.

You need to make a free partition or some free space for Ubuntu 7.04. Move all your important stuff from D: to C: and delete D: and resize/split it as you wish (Give Linux about 10-15 GB, though the minimum's 3~ GB, you'll need the space later). Now boot from the CD and follow it .. easy from there on.

[praka123]

also make a swap partition of 400MB

[faraaz]

400 will be enuf praka?? I remember reading somewhere that rule of thumb was Swap has to be 2x your RAM size...

[vish786]

that too is not required... becoz swap is hardly used nowadays. it was meant only before when memory was less.

if ur using too many multiple applications only then its used mostly.

[saurabh kakkar]

Originally Posted by shady_inc

i have a 40 gb hdd with two paritions and xp installed in one of them.I wish to install linux 7.04 from Digit bootable DVD on second partiton.but i don't want to lose the data on either of the partitions.how do i go about doing it??

I have no experience on even the basics of linux.so can someone plz tell me the exact steps i need to follow...

i think this thread will help a bit just scan through the sites :

Install ubuntu 7.04 -->with or without Cd (full detail)

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by faraaz

400 will be enuf praka?? I remember reading somewhere that rule of thumb was Swap has to be 2x your RAM size...

i use ubuntu 7.04 widout any swap! been long since i left making a swap partition in linux. when i feel the need i share windows page file file in linux as its swap file

[amitava82]

How do you share windows page file as swap?

[praka123]

Originally Posted by faraaz

400 will be enuf praka?? I remember reading somewhere that rule of thumb was Swap has to be 2x your RAM size...

Yes,more than enough that thumb rule was for 2.4 range of linux kernel's.I am using 256 MB RAM for now and my swap usage at anytime never crossed 150MB. So dont make BIG 2GB swap partitions as some suggests.

[faraaz]

I already made a 2055 MB partition...but hello, that was made automatically when I decided to let Sabayon's installer do whatever it wanted with my HDD...

[shady_inc]

Originally Posted by QwertyManiac

The best way is to make an empty partition, preferably the last one, and install Linux on it.

You need to make a free partition or some free space for Ubuntu 7.04. Move all your important stuff from D: to C: and delete D: and resize/split it as you wish (Give Linux about 10-15 GB, though the minimum's 3~ GB, you'll need the space later). Now boot from the CD and follow it .. easy from there on.

i have about 10 gig free space in D: drive
so,can i install linux in this free space WITHOUT having to format or delete this partition??

[Sykora]

By saying d: drive, I assume it's a partition you can access from windows, ie ntfs? In which case, the answer is no, you can't. You'll have to reformat the partition with a different filesystem.

[QwertyManiac]

Yep, you need a new partition, somehow or the other. Splitting it can be dangerous, so better move the data to someplace else temporarily (Make a HDD Image perhaps) and split D: into 2 sizes, one for Windows usage as you wish and the other for Linux. Then you can move back the data onto D: and use it just as before.

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by amitava82

How do you share windows page file as swap?

offtopic: keep windows page file on a partition wid full read-write access in ur linux system. then make sure that partition is auto mounted at startup in linux (pref. a fat32 partition)

then put these commands in ur startup script:
mkswap <mount point of page file partition>/pagefile.sys
swapon <mount point of page file partition>/pagefile.sys

thats it! you are sharing ur windows page file in linux as ur swap file!: )

ontopic: instead of moving the data on ur second partition to ur active windows partition (C, it'd be better to burn ur important data on a cd or dvd.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

mkswap <mount point of page file partition>/pagefile.sys
swapon <mount point of page file partition>/pagefile.sys

How much RAM do you have?

[praka123]

afaik Linux swap is a seperate file format?how can

[vish786]

Originally Posted by praka123

afaik Linux swap is a seperate file format?how can

yes pagefile.sys can be used as swap.

[eddie]

Originally Posted by praka123

afaik Linux swap is a seperate file format?how can

Windows would be be rewriting the pagefile.sys headers on every startup and then he is removing them at his every Linux startup using the script. So it can be done.

[praka123]

Oh!he's actually formatting swap every boot session to get going!innovative ways

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by eddie

How much RAM do you have?

me has 512mb ram and i rarely need to enable swap. everything runs jus fine!

yeah, swap doesn't need an exclusive partition. a file may also be used as swap. i've been using this thing since a long long time... and i've not been creating a separate partition. once u boot into linux, the contents of windows page file are useless. so i jus use this to share the pagefile.sys as linux swap file. its simple and works like a charm!

actually i dun enable it at every boot up. i jus enable the swap file as and when required.

[saurabh kakkar]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

me has 512mb ram and i rarely need to enable swap. everything runs jus fine!

yeah, swap doesn't need an exclusive partition. a file may also be used as swap. i've been using this thing since a long long time... and i've not been creating a separate partition. once u boot into linux, the contents of windows page file are useless. so i jus use this to share the pagefile.sys as linux swap file. its simple and works like a charm!

actually i dun enable it at every boot up. i jus enable the swap file as and when required.

where is the pagefile.sys located i searched my comp but no result

[praka123]

it will be a seperate partition for windows(if u made) or u'll find in ur windows installed partition for eg: C:\> drive

[eddie]

Originally Posted by infra_red_dude

me has 512mb ram and i rarely need to enable swap. everything runs jus fine!

You should enable swap. If you are using a reasonably new kernel then you will benefit from excellent prefetch and swapiness stuff that is going in

[QwertyManiac]

I don't really mind putting in a GB for Swap .. What's wrong if its not being used currently, at least avoids hassles when you need it.

[infra_red_dude]

hmmm.. guess i'll put it in the statup script then

[praka123]

@infra_red_dude:swap is needed,I too thought swap is not used very often.now with system of 256 MB DDR Swap usage too is high.
In windows,it wont ask for swap file creation-it just create pagefile.sys of around 750mb right?

[infra_red_dude]

Originally Posted by praka123

In windows,it wont ask for swap file creation-it just create pagefile.sys of around 750mb right?

yeah, correct! but u can modify it the way u want too!

btw, jus being curious i created a swap partition (split it for an existing not-much-used partition). set it as linux swap, and still the swap usage is nil! i dun understand why or how!

can somehere here who does some heavy work on linux system try and benchmark the results with, without and sharing of swap? i'd be very eager for the results. i cudn't find any difference.

btw, @shady_inc, i'd suggest you create 3 basic partitions (apart from swap if u wish):

1) linux root, mounted on '/' say about 5gb
2) a partition for housing boot files mounted as '/boot' of about 40mb or so
3) a partition for ur files, documents, downloads, pic and anything personal mounted as '/home' of the remaining space (~5gb)

this way u'll segregate everything on ur system u can be carefree

[gary4gar]

^^^^
why is a seprate a boot pariton needed?

[faraaz]

From what I have seen, thats where your grub.conf files and all are stored. Dunno why though...maybe Linux likes to boot up this way?? Makes editing and all easier than writing to MBR?? I dunno...I'm just a noob! >.<

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by gary4gar

^^^^
why is a seprate a boot pariton needed?

Not needed but recommended. On many people they have different partitions for /, /boot, /home, /usr, /var, It's not unusual. There can be other directories on separate partitions too, depending on the need.