Fresh reinstall with windows and linux

digiman

Firstly here are my laptop specs:

Dell Inspiron 8600
1.5Ghz Centrino
2*256MB RAM
128MB Graphics Card
60Gb harddrive

At the minute I have XP home SP2 installed on my laptop with 2 partians. I am planning on reinstalling windows and installing linux. I use linux a little bit at work but would like to get better at it so thought I would install it on my laptop.

A friend of mine has XP Pro (possibly pirate, im not sure on this), if I installed this on my laptop, would there be any problems like getting windows updates and SP2?

As regards Linux, its redhat that I use at work, so I probably would install this, were can you download this and what file size is it? I would use the college network for this. Do you need much knowledge of Linux to install it? I would have basis knowledge of it, can browse directories, delete files, telnet, change permissions etc.

What would be the best way to set up my harddrive for this? how many partians would I need and what size?

Some help please.

jozi

All ill say is install windows first and then linux.

Can you not just use the cd key from your existing windows install

digiman

jozi wrote:

Can you not just use the cd key from your existing windows install

The CD key I have is for XP home, its the one that came with the laptop from dell, will this work with XP Pro? I never imagined that it would?

Gandalf23

RedHat download here http://www.redhat.com/apps/download/

RedHat on laptops here http://www.linux-laptop.net/

May I also suggest reading anything relevant in the Unix and Open Source forums... usually some really good stuff there.

Another suggestion might be to go with a "live CD" before any hdd install of Linux. This will give you a good idea of how the Linux distro chosen will deal with your laptop and detecting hardware etc. Unfortunately RedHat dont have a live CD as far as I know... I'm open to correction on this.

Finally, I would strongly suggest considering other Linux distros... dont get stuck with RedHat just because you use it at work. In my opinion RedHat is not the greatest distro in the world, but have a look at as many live CD's as you can, do research, and make up your own mind http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=cd. There are also lots of Linux mag's available with cover CD's etc that can be really useful.

I'm a Gentoo man myself...

digiman

Well im after downloading 1.7GB of redhat .iso files, what file partions would you recommend? I found this from the link that gandalf sent me:

* Dell Diagnostic -- 30 M
* Win C: /dev/hda2 -- ~15 G
* /: /dev/hda8 -- ~15 G
* /boot: /dev/hda7 -- 100M
* /home: /dev/hda8 -- 6G
* Win /dev/hda5 -- 5G
* Win E: /dev/hda6 -- 17G

How many of the above linux partions do I need, I will be using windows about 90% of the time, mainly want linux for practising.

Sparky

id assume that you know that once you change your MBR on a dell you cant use the reinstall partition, of course if you were supplied a windows cd with your laptop then this doesnt apply.

digiman

Sparky_S wrote:

id assume that you know that once you change your MBR on a dell you cant use the reinstall partition, of course if you were supplied a windows cd with your laptop then this doesnt apply.

Could you explain more about this, I have never heard of MBR. I was supplied with a windows Xp home cd with my laptop although I might reinstall with XP Pro

Sparky

well if you got a cd with your laptop your ok then.
But to explain things A MBR is a Master Boot Record, on most of the dell laptops there is a hidden partition that contains a image file of the HDD, there is also a prog. on the partition that extracts the image file to the relevent partition. but to get to this partition you have to press ctrl and f11 when a blue bar with www.dell.com appears before win xp boots up.
But if the MBR is changed this blue bar does'nt appear anymore, hence you cant use the restore partition without going through hard methods.
I encountered this when installing linux beside win xp and it fecked up my MBR but i used norton ghost to extract the image file and had my original xp installation back.

But this wouldnt apply to you because you have win xp on cd supplied with your computer, the only reason dell do this restore partition i assume is to stop piracy.

digiman

I have a feeling that this hidden partion could be deleted because I did a reinstall about 6 months ago, and put in a partion for windows. Do you think that this could have deleted the other one? Is it important to have this other hidden partion?

Capt'n Midnight

digiman wrote:

The CD key I have is for XP home, its the one that came with the laptop from dell, will this work with XP Pro? I never imagined that it would?

No it won't, Unless you have a separate license for Pro you aren't allowed to use it. And an OEM license is no good since it is not for your machine.

Why do you need PRO anyway ?
On the windows & security forumns there is an example of an exploit that would give HOME many pro features. It's almost certainly going to get "fixed" in the next SP.
Many server features like DHCP / FTP etc. can be done with third party apps but, for file/print/desktop sharing the original terms of the license apply , even though microsoft themselves bypassed Novell's licenses with thier Netware Gateway.

Khannie

digiman wrote:

As regards Linux, its redhat that I use at work, so I probably would install this, were can you download this and what file size is it?

Open up your favourite ftp client (try filezilla.sourceforge.net for a good one) and go to

ftp.esat.net

There are redhat mirrors in there.

also ftp.heanet.ie have a redhat mirror methinks. You should get it in a matter of minutes on a college connection. I'd recommend fedora core 3 if you want to go redhat (though I'd recommend you check out ubuntu). The FC3 download varies in size but is 3cd's (or 1 dvd) at a minimum.

digiman

Yea I got them downloaded yesterday, it was around 2GB, took less then 30mins on the college wireless network.

Anyone got any suggestions on how I should partition my hard drive.

petes

All I did when partiioning my hard drive(also a dell inspiron 8600 wit 60gb drive) was to set up a 20gb patition for linux and installed ubuntu. Working perfectly.