I'm using WinXP, will it be overwritten?

jovada · n00b Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 2

Do I have to make an empty partition first? Or will the installer do this for me? I'm using WinXP at the moment and I'm a complete Linux newbie. It looks awfully complicated...

AndiW · Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2003 3:25 pm Post subject:

Yes you will have to make room for gentoo first, because fdisk can't resize NTFS partitions!

You can use Partitionmagic in WinXP to resize your NTFS partition without loosing data.

hope this helps!
_________________
A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that balances are correct. -- Princess Irulan, "Manual of Muad'Dib"

py-ro · Veteran Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 1734 Location: Velbert

Ähmm you write:

darktux

OddFox · Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:09 pm Post subject:

If you insist on using Gentoo then use Partition Magic to resize your NTFS partition and avoid data loss. It's generally a good idea to leave about 5-10 gigs at least for an installation of any OS (I'm not sure how big a default fresh Gentoo install is, but I'm sure it's under 1GB) so you have room for software/music/video/whatever, so make sure you have a decent amount of "Unpartitioned" space available. Then, when you boot off the Gentoo CD-ROM, just use fdisk or cfdisk to create a 100MB /boot, a swap that is roughly 2x your current RAM amount (Unless you have 512MB of RAM, in which case you really don't even need any swap, but it couldn't hurt to spare 256MB at least for swap, would it?), and make the rest the root partition. You could make different partition layouts but for a new user I would just do that if you're going with Gentoo, at least until you figure out more about what your needs are.

Mandrake or RedHat are distros I would recommend for Linux newbies, or those who just want a system up and running with minimal fuss. If you'd like any further help, just ask either in the forum or e-mail.
_________________
Now the rainy season reminds me of Maria
The way she danced, the color of her hair
Now I'm locked inside a stall at the cantina
Eating the bananas and the cocaine off the mirror
Looking for a ticket to take me away from here

OddFox · Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2003 7:10 pm Post subject:

Oh and I almost forgot: defrag your Windows partition before resizing it. Failure to do so may result in data loss.
_________________
Now the rainy season reminds me of Maria
The way she danced, the color of her hair
Now I'm locked inside a stall at the cantina
Eating the bananas and the cocaine off the mirror
Looking for a ticket to take me away from here

jovada · n00b Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 2

Thank you everyone for your help !