Want to install Linux Slackware but...

jozi

i want to instal lionux slackware on my pc but i dont want to loose the data of my current windows instalation, to many progs and files etc.

i guess i have to partition my hd but i'm not sure how to go about this, can anyone help me here?

what is slackware like anyway?
have redhat and suse to they any better? i guess i'll be using the pc mostly for gaming and multimedia stuff

jozi

pickarooney

Can't speak for slackware, but RH and Mandrake both deal with installing alongside an existing Windows partition very intuitively. Basically, at the beginning of the install they'll show you the current HD usage and ask you what you want to do - overwrite or use the empty space for your linux bits.

jozi

thanks for the fast reply, basically i've nothing to wory about if my slackware gives me the same option in the setup as mandrake (if only i had that i'd be sure)

pickarooney

One of the slackware users will confirm it, but just in case there's not such a tool, you could always use the rh or madrake partition managers and then cancel the rest of the installation. You might ask what's the point of that, if you could use Partition Magic to do the same thing, but I've had some bad experiences with PM, linux partitions and the MBR and I don't think I'm the only one.

jozi

i think i'll just start redhat instalation then and cancel like you said.

just to be sure, doing this that way wont cause any loss of data?

Capt'n Midnight

Don't forget to scandisk and defrag first -so if you need to change partition size then no files need to be moved to the start of the driver.

For debian you can copy the knoppix image off the cd onto a FAT 32 drive and mount it -no messing with partitions or boot sectors - all you need is about 1GB free space

c:\loadlin.exe is 30KB
c:\ also contains the other files from the root on the CD
C:\Knoppix contains the ISO image to load & settings
the home=scan means it will look in c:\knoppix for settings etc.

loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 initrd=miniroot.gz Knoppix lang=us keyboard=gb xk
eyboard=gb wheelmouse home=scan config=scan noprompt noeject

Typedef

Originally posted by pickarooney
One of the slackware users will confirm it, but just in case there's not such a tool, you could always use the rh or madrake partition managers and then cancel the rest of the installation.

Nonesense old boy.

If it's a FAT32 partition just use fips to resize the sucker.

http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips/

Gerry

If you are using fedora ( and possibly previous redhat distros ), there is a good utility called parted on the first cd, you get to it by booting with:

linux rescue

instead of just pressing enter.