Newbie who DESPERATELY needs help!!

[w0lfman69]

Okay, this is going to sound very bad, but OH well.... I CAN NOT PARTITION MY DRIVE. Windows is in the 1st...thing. And when I press "2" "3" OR "4" to partition a place for Linux, I get a strange error saying something like the partition does not exist. I have followed EVERY command in the book. HELP?!?!

[JCDenton]

What are you trying to use to partition your drives, how many harddrives to you have, in what order are they on the chain. Um... that should about cover it, oh, the size. After that I could be of some assistance. :D

[w0lfman69]

I am using cfdisk to partition, I have one hard drive, it's size is 4.3 gigs. There. :)

[JCDenton]

So you are in windows right now trying to get linux on. You have windows on the entire 4.3Gig drive? I'm confused because cfdisk is a linux disk tool (as far as I know, I use it in linux) and it doesn't have 1,2 3,4 prompts. You have to cfdisk /dev/hd* where the * is replaced with the corresponding HD. If you are actually running fdisk from windows and windows is taking up the whole 4.3 gig partion you have, then you are going to have to actually remove windows and start fresh. Or use something along the lines of Partition Magic that will hot partition your drive. From what I hear, Partition magic isn't so reliable though. Let me know if this helps at all.

[w0lfman69]

No, I insert the Linux boot cd, reboot the computer and I go to cfdisk. Windows is on the 4.3 gig hard drive, but only takes up about a gig. This means that I'm screwed, right? Because I do NOT want to delete Windows. Is there any way I can install Linux on the same partition as Windows? If so, PLEASE help.... :(

[JCDenton]

Ok, I think I see what's going on here.
You installed windows without partitioning anything (the default install basically). So in windows you see one hard drive (c :) and it's max capacity is 4.3 gig (even though you may only be using 1 gig). This means that you only have one physical partition made on that drive. To make another partion, you actually have to remove all the partitions you have right now and make two new ones. Yes, this would require removing windows, but only temporarily. If removing windows even temporarily is not an option, then there are some flavors of linux that will embed themselves in your windows filesystem. I don't remember any off hand, but I know I've read about something like it. Those are pretty much, "Enter at your own risk" distributions. If you are just interested in trying out linux, SuSE makes an evaluation version that won't actually install linux to it's own partition, it runs off the CD. This could be a possibilty to try? If you are looking to really install it, then you will have to either wipe out windows temporarily, or get a new HD. Hope this helps.

[slayter]

Within cfdisk, can't you use the option of pressing 'n' to create a new partition from free space on the existing partition?

You may also want to try Mandrake. It has a utility call DiskDrak that gives you a graphical representation of your hard drive and lets you decrease your existing partition size in order to create new ones. Similar to Partition Magic. I would highly recommend doing a thorough scand disk and then defrag from winows first if you take this route, and then there is still the risk of losing important data. That said, I've done bunches of times without corrupting any my windows system. Of course, can you really tell if windows is any more corrupted?

[w0lfman69]

Alright, I'm at the point where I think I should just get rid of Windows. There ARE, however, things I really want to hang onto! (Stuff sent by my girlfriend, couple of mp3's, etc...)

Anyways, I realize this is basically impossible, which really sucks, but what can you do, right? SO, I was wondering if there was any way you can run these programs in Linux (trying to make my final decision):

AIM, Icq, Quake, Quake 2, other assorted games.
These are the only things I have any real urge to use.
AND AND AND, *laughs*, Will someone email me instructions on getting the internet to work in Linux? I have a dial up connection. Blah.

Thanks, guys, you're really being a big help. :) :cool:

[sans-hubris]

You'll have to understand what partitions are before you figure out Linux. This is the same problem that I ran into the first time I tried Linux and I didn't understand it at first either. I'll give you a quick over view:

Partitions are the space that operating systems like Windows and Linux set aside for just themselves. This means that even if you still have free disk space according to what the operating system (i.e. Windows or Linux) says, it's free only for that operating system. Why is it this way? It's how different operating systems store and retrieve files and information. It's how they figure out the beginning and the end of a file.

[Webby]

there are several clones of the AIM and icq programs which run in linux that let you connect to your AIM and icq account. quake had the source code released by id and so as long as you have the pak file from the win game then you can get a version for linux and load the pak file into it. im not sure if there is the same thing for quake 2.

hope that helps

Alex

[JCDenton]

I'm pretty sure you can get quake 2, if they ported it to Irix, I'm sure there's a port to linux. Gaim is the way you want to go with AIM too. Good luck and enjoy!

[TaeShadow]

Quake 2 works perfectly in Linux. 3D acceleration and everything.

[sam0478]

OK, back to your original problem...

Since you only have one partition right now, you'll have to use a program called FIPS (included on most linux distro CDROM disks - just look around on the disk or do a find for it). FIPS will create two separate partitions from your single-partition hard drive. First you will have to run a defrag in Windows to move all the data to the beginning of the drive. Then you will need to figure up exactly how much of your hard drive Windows is using up. You say it's only using up about a gig, so when you run FIPS you will need to make sure that you don't separate your two partitions in the middle of data that Windows is using.. so maybe set it so that first partition holds about 1.5 gigs, then the rest of it holds the remaining space for linux. You'll have to just read the help file that comes with FIPS to get it working right. If it succeeds, you'll be able to use cfdisk or fdisk to work with your two partitions. Don't mess with your first (windows) partition, but make sure you separate your second partition into a Linux swap (this can be any size, but recommended about twice the size of your RAM.. up to about 128 megs).. and then set the other part to fill the rest of that partition for your Linux Native partition.. just play around with that so that you have your Windows partition, your Linux Swap partition, and your Linux Native partition. Make sure that Linux Native partition is at mount point "/"...

Whatever works.. Well if you can't understand that, then don't worry about it. Maybe someone else can help.

[buzz lightyear]

I concur with sam...

I just used FIPS last nite and it was pretty easy to use and didn't screw up anything with 'Doze. First, u need to defrag your drive (after turning off virtual memory and unselecting "Rearrange program files so my programs start faster" on the defrag options). If you have RH, you probably have FIPS on one of the disks (make sure you read the directions!) If not, just download it.

That was the first time I did real partitioning and would definitely use FIPS again. Good luck!

[w0lfman69]

Alright, I run FIPS from DOS, and then I should be able to run both Slackware AND windows? No deleting of my precious files? :)

[roderyk]

First, what kind of distribution do you have?

I am only familiar with Mandrake, so I'll give you my 2 cents.

ICQ and AIM have been ported to Linux. So has Quake and Quake II. Multimedia has also been completely ported (mp3, mpeg, etc.)

If you can get your hands on a cd of Linux Mandrake (7.1 or later), that would make your life a lot easier. First, they offer you Partirion Magic, which is the easiest and probably safest way to partition your hard drive(at least I have not had any problems with it). Second, Mandrake offers you many of the programs you want: ICQ, AIM.

OK, I am going to stop advertising. If you can't get your hands on that, during the Linux install, you should be able to use FDISK. I recommend this. Use the help command, to find out how to use it. It is really simple to use.

There is one thing no one mentioned, but is extremely important. (I get the feeling of don't ask, don't tell). You can run linux and Winblows onthe same computer. WHen you computer boots, a program should be made so you can enter if you want linux or windblows. A popular and small program is LILO. When your computer boots, it asks you which operating system you want and if you don't answer after some set time(about 10 seconds for default), it will boot the operating system selected as default. I personally had problems with LILO, so I ended up using GRUB. They both work the same way, so if one fails, use the other.

During the linux install, when setting up LILO or GRUB, it will ask you what partition to set it up on. If you want it to ask you when you boot your computer you HAVE to set it up on the first partition (usually winblows).

It also recommended that you make a Linux boot disk. If all goes bad with the boot program, you can boot through the Linuxboot disk, until you get it fixed. This also brings up the idea that you should have a winblows boot disk around.

Hope this clears up some install problems. I think someone should organize a category just for installing Linux, and have subdirectories based on different parts of the install process, or maybe different distros.