HDD prep/partitioning for DSL(Damn Small Linux)

humaxf1

Hello all,

After a recent thread in this section, I downloaded the DSL iso and burned to CD. I ran it as a live CD, but now I wish to install to my hard drive. When I get to the install bit, it's looking for a partition name to be entered, ie hda'x' (no partitions exist at the mo)

Problem is, I've never partitioned a drive for linux, because it's been automatic for any other distro I've installed. Can anyone guide me how to partition the drive? I presume it's similar to fdisk for windows?

Thx.
Dara.

SouperComputer

well basically you need two partitions:

1) Root or / for your OS
2) Swap for your swapfile, generally twice the size of your physical RAM.

You can use fdisk to create the partitions. The filesystem type is your choice, EXT3 is the most popular for your / partition. The swap has to be, well a swap filesystem. This will all make sense when you run fdisk.

The dev/hd part refers to device/drive(or bus) and partition.

So /dev/hda1 is the first parition on the first physical drive
/dev/hda2 is the second partition on the first physical drive
/dev/hdb1 is the first partition on the SECOND physical drive.

.......etc etc

So your drive should look like this when you are done:

/dev/hda1 (EXT3FS) mounted as /
/dev/hda2 Swap

humaxf1

Hi Souper,

So, just to make sure...I can use fdisk on a win 98 boot disk to set the partitions? As for formatting/filesystem, will DSL look after this/prompt me during the setup process?

thx

SouperComputer

no windoze fdisk is no good, you can install on fat32 but there's not much point.

During the setup process you will be asked to setup your partitions.

humaxf1

ok...em, what is the linux equivilant of windows fdisk?

is_that_so

Put in the Linux install disk. Most flavours have an FDisk type of utility.

humaxf1

i found cfdisk from the command line...

niallb

cfdisk or just fdisk are both available from DSL.
Have you a bit of free space on the drive you can use?
Damn Small will be comfortable with 200-250MB.

As soupercomputer says, a swap partition is important,
though if you've a modern amount of RAM, DSL will never use it.

The latest version (2.1b) idles in less than 22MB of RAM, and with
a firefox window open consumes just over 30MB.
Just saw that version 2.2 is out - must get it next time
I'm near a broadband connection.

The odd setup program is due to the fact that the DSL disk
is not an install disk in the familiar sense.
It's just a live cd with the option to transfer that
installation to a hard drive, a usb key, or a file
on another filesystem. It expects the destination
to already exist. How are you finding cfdisk to use?

A word of warning, don't mount the dsl partition
using another linux distro. It's filesystem is not
100% compatible with new kernels, and it will get damaged.

If you've more than 128MB of ram, try booting from CD
using the option dsl toram. Running completely
from memory, it's faster than you'd believe possible.
(Note: You can't install to disk from a 'toram' boot)

Did you type 'install' at the boot prompt or use the utility
on the tools menu after booting normally?

I use it a lot on old systems - the two most succesful being
a P166 Desktop with 80MB of RAM, and a Toshiba 4030 laptop
with 96MB.

Enjoy it,
NiallB