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General discussion

Repartitioning for linux

May 10, 2005 7:14AM PDT

I want to install slackware. I've downloaded the isos and burned them, and gotten to the part of setup where I have to repartition my hard drive with fdisk.

I can't figure out how to reduce the size of the primary partition to make an extended one. Windows XP is on the primary, and it has about 5 gigs free... how many cylinders is that and how can I make sure that I reassign only free, empty space to the linux partition? I really need to keep the FAT32-formatted data intact.

A link to an old trial of partitionmagic will do too Happy

Also, I was wondering how much space /home requires (I want to make that partition separate and as small as possible) and how much space I should format into a linux swap partition. I have 128 megs of ram and plan on using kde if that makes any difference.

Discussion is locked

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I don't PQmagic has trial version anymore.
May 10, 2005 5:42PM PDT
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yes i know
May 10, 2005 9:37PM PDT

that's why I said "old trial".

and I chose slackware because it's so small and fast; this computer is barely able to boot knoppix

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Why, because someone said so.
May 11, 2005 1:45AM PDT

Don't you believe it. If it's slow on windows it will be just as slow on linux..regardless of the distros. The only OS that show-up a slow computer is BeOS as far as I know..hehe.

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Repartitioning for Linux
May 11, 2005 10:20AM PDT

Starting with ver. 8, the PM "trial" was a demo only. You can use a Knoppix CD to partition, but re-sizing a WinXP partition may cause data loss; even PM recommends backup before using it. If you only have 5 GB free on the drive, you should get a 2nd drive. The Linux bootloader will dual-boot with XP easily.