Linus installation question

[MarkLeong]

Initially, I have a computer with one hd partitioned into C and D drive (loaded with Win98). I've added a second drive (mounted as secondary master) and fdisk has created it as D (my original drive is now C and E).

What happen if I install RH7.1 in my second drive? How will windows see the drives?

[ThePyr0x]

RedHat, along with all the other Linux distros out there (that I know of) prefer to use a different filesystem(ext2) for storing files than the Windows filesystem(fat32). Windows does not like this filesystem and will not read it at all without specific programs (I've heard of one but I forgot it). You might also experience another problem with installing RedHat on your Secondary Master hard drive, because if I am not mistaken, the LILO bootloader does not like to be on the Secondary Master, only the Primary Master. But anybody else on these boards, feel free to correct me here.

[albertfuller]

Originally posted by MarkLeong:
<STRONG>Initially, I have a computer with one hd partitioned into C and D drive (loaded with Win98). I've added a second drive (mounted as secondary master) and fdisk has created it as D (my original drive is now C and E).
What happen if I install RH7.1 in my second drive? How will windows see the drives?</STRONG>


don't worry about windows, it uses drive letters to identify partitions, linux (unix) identifies the harddisks, IDEs, by hda, hdb. The 2 partitions on hda, if primary, will be hda1 and hda2, or if you used extend partitions it will be hda1 and hda5.
If you have scsi it would be sda and sdb.
So when you install Redhat, you will see the two hard disks (really easy if they are not identical) so you can confirm that hdb is the second HD.
You also need to consider your partitions structure: if you have the option to use reiserfs rather than ext2 then do so... but you must know that for booting seperate /boot (25mb approx) and have it as ext2. I use:
/ ............... reiserfs
/boot ........... ext2
/home ........... reiserfs
/usr/local ...... reiserfs
the reason for seperating /home and /usr/local so that your stuff is seperate from the distro which you will appreciate come upgrade time of if you reinstall (because it is so much fun)

good luck..

[ 06 October 2001: Message edited by: albertfuller ]

[MarkLeong]

Thanks.

Am I correct to say that Windows will see drive E as D after I install RH7.1 on the secondary master?

I have installed RH7.1 before and if I remember correctly, all the directories are handled by Linux during the installation. I need not specify any (except for swap and where I want to install RH).

[bdg1983]

Windows will not see the Linux partitions and thus will not assign drive letters.

Yes Linux will handle all the directories during the installation unless you choose to make separate partitions for i.e. /home, /var etc. Just leave it as is if that's easier for you.