Grasshopper Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 I just built a second system to store videos (I'm busy recording right now....my wife had our second daughter yesterday morning and now I'm gonna impose on everyone with pictures!! ).I plan on buying a rather large HD soon to store those, but for now, this machine has a 40GB drive partitioned thusly: an 8GB partition for Win2k and the other remaining space is formatted NTFS.I would like to load Mandrake 9.1 on this other partition soon and have a couple of questions. I do have the images downloaded and burned, ready to install.--Does the setup routine allow you to set the system up to boot from floppy right away without having to deal with boot loaders and such? I know some people swear by them but this may be a system that I do some experimenting with so I want to have it as simple as possible.and...--Will the Mandrake setup recognize the current NTFS partition and convert it to the Linux compatible partition without me doing any other type of preparation?--Also is there a comprehensive hardware compatibility site that is out there?I've tinkered with a 5.x version of RedHat in the past and remember it as fickle but useable if you were knowledgeable and persistent enough.Thanks,tbird Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 Yes you can do floppy boot disks for Linux (basically having GRUB or LILO loaded onto the disk) as this is how my machine is setup... When you're doing the installation and it gets to the summary at the end, just change the bootloader information to install on /mnt/fd0 (I believe that's correct).Also, it will handle your NTFS partition with no problems... I assume there's no stuff on that drive? If so, make sure you scandisk/defrag it before you go shrinking it down. I had no problems doing this from the Mandrake installer on my machine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 Hi tbird9768, welcome to the Linux forum. -Also is there a comprehensive hardware compatibility site that is out there? Yes for Mandrake HereWill the Mandrake setup recognize the current NTFS partition and convert it to the Linux compatible partition without me doing any other type of preparation? No need for any preparation as long as the partition is empty, otherwise a defrag of that partition is highly advicable.Does the setup routine allow you to set the system up to boot from floppy right away without having to deal with boot loaders and such? I know some people swear by them but this may be a system that I do some experimenting with so I want to have it as simple as possible.and... Yes, you can decide not to install the bootloader ( Lilo ) and boot from a floppy, however the bootloader is so much easier, no hassle at all.I would like to load Mandrake 9.1 on this other partition soon and have a couple of questions. I do have the images downloaded and burned, ready to install. Yes you have to download the ISO´s ( or order them at CheapBites ) and brun them to CD ( Nero is the best iso-burning program. See ¨Tips for Linux Starters¨ at the top of this forum.Any other questions are welcomeB) Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 One thing to add though with the bootloader on the floppy... My installation gave me some troubles when it came to booting back into Windows... For some reason, even with LILO installed on my floppy, it still screwed up the MBR... I did have to do an "fdisk /mbr" to fix the bootloader back into WinXP (should be the same for Win2k)... Fixed the problem and I only had to do this once (right after install)... after that, everything worked fine! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeg4 Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 Congratulations tbird That is one beautifull young lady you have there, You should be very proud .And speaking for myself ,OF COURSE, it is never an imposition to view a lovely young lady .The others will tell you everything you want to know about the installation . But I can say this I just installed RH9 on my computer along with Win98 and WinXP and I had no trouble installing . ( getting the modem to work is another story ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted May 27, 2003 Share Posted May 27, 2003 Looks like you're covered on the Linux tips for installation ... however, I just had to say CONGRATUATIONS!!!!!Beautiful baby! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grasshopper Posted May 28, 2003 Author Share Posted May 28, 2003 Thanks for the Penguin tips and...thanks for the compliments on my daughter. Yes, she's a doll. I'm so very lucky to have two beautiful daughters. I didn't get to see her much today because my older daughter has a bug and was very tired and threw up a couple of times so we stayed home. I miss her real bad.Regarding the the LILO floppy v. regular boot LILO...ChiMan, you say that even though you set up for floppy boot, it still changed your MBR????? That's fairly strange, isn't it??If that's the case, then I may just do the regular then. My goal is a drive partitioned and loaded so that if I needed to tear a partition or drive down, I could do it without any MBR funny business. My last involvement with a multiboot systems was less than pleasant. Maybe I'll try it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GolfProRM Posted May 28, 2003 Share Posted May 28, 2003 I don't know if this was just a glitch with my system or if this is a glitch with Mandrake's installer, but it's not a huge problem if you've only got one other OS on the system. I do agree with you about being able to tear down a partition without any reprecussions, and personally, I really enjoy the setup with the LILO flopppy. All you have to do (if the machine won't boot into Windows again) is put in the Windows CD and run the repair console and type either "fixmbr" or "fdisk /mbr" (depends on if the first command is recognized in Win2k)... Both will do the same thing and won't cause any problems... takes 3 minutes for the whole repair process. I'm not even sure if you'll run into this problem, but it's not a complicated issue... And like I said, you'll only have to do that when you install Mandrake (or reinstall it)... not everytime... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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