Newbie: RH8.0 Pre-installation Questions

[theN]

Hi

I'm newbie going for a RH8.0 install. This will be my first OS install of any kind (been the default Win'98 all these days). I've read the RH installation manual and the DOS-Win-to-Linux & Linux+Windows HOWTOs at www.tldp.org. The HOWTOs I read were quite old, the most recent one being edited some time in 2000. I've also been through all the relevant threads in this forum, but I still have a couple of pre-installation questions.

* I've read conflicting stuff about the 8GB limit for BIOS vis-a-vis bootable sectors. So I'm going BSTS and will partition the HDD into 4 partitions using FIPS2.0
C - 6GB - PRIMARY DOS
D & E - 6GB - EXTENDED LOGICAL DOS
F - 2GB - EXTENDED LOGICAL DOS
Can I load RH onto a current Extended Logical DOS Drive like D drive in the above setup? or Does D partition need to be a primary partition too?
* If I choose LILO as the boot mgr and DON'T WANT to place it in the MBR / boot through a floppy every time; are there any other booting options available?
* None of the documents that I came across agree on the number of partitions that need to be made while installing Linux. Some say SWAP, ROOT & BOOT and others advocate a greater number of partitions. What is the optimum/safe number of partitions?
* Can I use the last partition F as a common holding/storage area for both Windows and Linux downloaded applications?
* Will it suffice to have the RH boot partition between 6GB-7GB to avoid the 8GB conflict?

I know that most of these questions may've been addressed before, guess I'm too dumb to make sense of them. I request all the respondents to bear with my ignorance and I'll be very grateful for any guidance/ tips / pointers.

PC Configuration
**************************
P3-866MHz
256MB SDRAM
20GB Seagate IDE HDD
Intel 815 chipset (Kobian)
FDD
LG 40X CDROM
LG 32X CD-RW
OS: Win'98
Current Partitions: C & D (10GB each)
--- OS and other data taking about 2.8GB of C partition. D is totally empty.
**************************

This is my first post in this forum. Please pardon any oversights and mistakes.

Thanks in Advance & Regards
theN

[gkedrovs]

I can't answer all your questions, but I'm sure someone can. Let me see if I can add 2 cents, hoping it will be of some help.

The minimum number of partitions you will need for a standard Linux install is one, via FDISK or FIPS. You separate one partition (the size you want) for Linux when you do FIPS. I had Win98 on a 40gig hdd and gave about half and half to Win and Linux during my FIPS session.

During install of Red Hat you'll modify ("re-format") that Linux partition (be very careful during this step to not touch your Windoze partition, or you'll hose the whole deal). It's during this stage of the RH install process that you divide up that Linux partition however you want. The minimum is a swap partition (small: recommened to be double your RAM, or something like that) and then however many more partitions you wish to create in your Linux world. I did the 2: swap and one Linux partition for a standard install.

I believe there are other booting options available during your install procedure if you don't want a boot strap in your MBR. You would simply create a boot floppy and use that to boot into Linux when you start your machine (or CD, etc.).

That's as far I can go. I have found good, recent, useable documentation for installation in the "Red Hat Bible." I installed RH7.2, and the "Bible" (authored by Christopher Negus) walked me through everything from FIPS repartitioning to diddling with partitions, boot straps, et al. If you can get your hands on one (Red Hat Linux 8.0 Bible, if it's out yet - if not, maybe the 7.2 or 7.3 would be good?), it may help.

Hopefully some of the other guys on this forum can help more than I did. They're very good at that!

-Greg

[michaelk]

Welcome to linux!!

You are correct the info is old and outdated. There isn't a 8G BIOS limit anymore. And your computer is new enough that there should not be a problem.

linux does not have to be installed in a primary partition. However, linux does not use DOS formated partitions. It is best as a newbie to leave free space on the hard drive and let the installer do the partitioning and formating. linux can read and write FAT32 paritions so you can use any of your Win98 drives to share data between the two OS's As to how to partition. Two is a min / i.e. root and a swap. It really depends on what you want to do with it. I would keep it simple until you have more experience.
/boot 50-70 mb
swap 512
/ 6G

Some will disagree but I don't have any problems with Win98 and a bootloader installed on the mbr.