Installing Debian on Windows XP Machine- Hard Drive Partitioning


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Thread: Installing Debian on Windows XP Machine- Hard Drive Partitioning

  1. #1
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    Cool Installing Debian on Windows XP Machine- Hard Drive Partitioning

    Hi
    I'm fairly new (an absolute newbie ) to Linux and Debian. I've downloaded Etch (stable Debian 4.0) and have burnt CD's for installation. My machine has XP home pre-installed. My plan is to keep XP on this machine and enable dual boot with my wife using (for now at least) XP and I would be using Debian.
    I read the installation documentation by Debian (downloaded from the debian.org website). one thing that really confused me was the hard drive partitioning. Here are my questions:
    1: Do I first partition the hard drive (I have one large 120GB hard drive) using Windows utility? If yes, what size partitions and how many should i create?
    2. Debian documentation says that installing Grub will enable dual-boot. Should this be installed before installing Debian?
    3. Is the Debian installation as easy as putting in the CD and let the installer guide the me through the installation process, creating partitions, installing Grub and doing most of the other stuff for me? I wish it was like this but would like to hear from the gurus before jumping in the installation process.

    If you can help me with these questions that would be awesome. I want to use this system as a web and database server and would also like to install GNOME or KDE on it. I would also appreciate if you could guide me to a website or forum that shows an over-simplified (repeat, I'm an absolute newbie, a recent convert from Win to Lin) installation process.

    Thanks

    Rocky

  2. #2
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    1. If you'll be destroying your XP partition then it doesn't matter what you use to partition the drives. If I were you I'd make 3 partitions: 60GB for windows, 59.5 GB for linux root (/), and 512MB for linux swap. The debian installer has a nice partitioning tool, so you can use that. Just know that it'll want to know the mount point for each of those partitions (none for the 1st partition, / for the second partition and "swap" for the 3rd)
    2. During the install, you will be prompted on where to put grub...put it on the MBR. There will be a file /boot/grub/grub.conf (or menu.lst) that contains the text presented at boot time. There will be a paragraph for each OS.
    IMPORTANT (afterthought): You should partition first and install XP on the first of 3 partitions because if you install XP last it will overwrite grub and cause a minor headache.
    3. It's ALMOST that easy, but the funky console look-n-feel of the installer will probably produce an adrenaline rush and a fight-or-flight response
    Need help in realtime? Visit us at #linuxnewbie on irc.libera.chat

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  3. #3
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    Might want to think about 4 partitions. A small partition at the beginning 30mb or so for /boot. That will avoid a certain issue that can come up with boot loaders.

    Though, when I install, I use somewhere around 8-10 partitions for linux.
    But then again, I'm picky.

    One thing that I've found that I recommend is setting up a separate partition for your /home directory. Since that's where all of your own files are stored, it's nice to keep that separate from the others.
    I once had my system corrupted by someone that simply pulled the plug on the computer. System would no longer boot after that incident.
    Reloaded debian (luckily I remembered which partition /home was on), and didn't lose a single one of my personal files.

    Just something to keep in mind, even though there are many many numbers of ways to partition your drive.
    Knute

    You live, you die, enjoy the interval!

  4. #4
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    One of the way is one partition per Linux. A 10Gb will suit all distros

    The first Linux need a swap too which can be common to all other installed Linux. 1Gb will do all distros.

    Single partition Linux is easier to maintain, easier to boot and easier to migrate. All Linux components are inside. /boot, /home, /usr etc are just subdirectories to the root "/". You lose none of the inconvenience or functionalities.

    Multiple partitions are useful for servers if you want to play tunes with the Linux subdirectories.
    Last edited by saikee; 04-13-2007 at 03:32 PM.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  5. #5
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    Partitioning is the most complicated issue, mainly because Windows XP uses Microsoft's proprietary NTFS file system and as such I'm wary of resizing it with anything other than Windows utilities.

    The thing is, resizing an existing Windows install with Windows utilities may or may not be the easiest thing to do, depending on what Windows utilities you have on hand.

    I don't know whether the Etch installer partitioner has the ability to resize NTFS partitions. The only time I set up a dual boot XP/Debian system, I was installing Windows XP from scratch so I used the WinXP installer disc's partitioning options to do what I needed.

    Anyway, after figuring out the thorny partition resizing bit, the rest is straightforward. The Etch installer will walk you through most of the steps, including installing GRUB (unless you choose the "expert" install, it will do so with little input from yourself other than manual confirmation that it's okay to install GRUB).

    Etch's "desktop system" software suite will install GNOME but not KDE. It's easy to install KDE after the initial setup, at which point you can choose when you log in whether you want to use GNOME or KDE (or any other desktop environments you install).

    The last version of Debian, Debian Sarge, installed both GNOME and KDE by default in its "desktop workstation" software suite. This took a heck of a long time to download and a lot more disk space, so I can understand why they decided to just load GNOME by default.

    Anyway, back to partitioning--I'd go with the following partitioning:

    1) 15gigs NTFS WinXP
    2) ~90gigs FAT32 data
    3) 10gigs ext3 Debian OS
    4) 1gig swap

    With a clean WinXP install, it's pretty easy to get this started. You simply tell the XP installer to put the OS on a 15gig partition and leave the rest as an empty data partition. XP won't give you a choice about the file system--it'll make it NTFS.

    Then after the XP install, use the Debian installer to do the rest. The first thing you do is remove that empty NTFS partition and then create the remaining partitions as above.

    Now, with some older motherboards you might run into trouble because GRUB can't get access to anything above the first 32gigs of the drive. In that case, just use LILO instead of GRUB. I'm not positive if Etch has a LILO option; the Sarge installer did. Anyway, don't worry about this stuff unless it turns out to be a problem.
    Isaac Kuo, ICQ 29055726 or Yahoo mechdan

  6. #6
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    IsaacKuo,

    I had exactly the same view as you thinking the best way to resize a Windows in NTFS partition was to use Windows own software, until I was told my view was obsolete by a ex-maintainer of Gaprted, who is a member of JL forum too.

    I tried the lastest version of Gaprted and Parted Magic and have not encounted any problem of using Linux software, available in Live CD, to resize any Xp and Win2k.

    I believe Linux software can resize Vista too but Vista now comes with an resizer program faster than any other software.

    You may like to try Gaprted or Parted Magic (the latter also employs Gparted as the engine) and update your view.

    There has been a lot of recent work done in Linux to write and resize ntfs partitions reliably and I like JL seen as an up to the minute Linux forum.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  7. #7
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    I would have to agree with the GParted person.
    I recently did an install on my Dell with XP on it. The resizing I did using GParted, and this went totally fine. XP survived it without any problem and still functions well.

    Then again, I might have been just lucky....
    Bart

  8. #8
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    Alpine CH,

    If you were using the latest Gparted that was what it supposed to do. No luck is needed.

    However it is a good practice to defrag a NTFS partition before it is resized.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  9. #9
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    .... which is exactly what I did....
    And I assue it was the newest GParted, I did it about 1 month ago...
    Thanks,
    Cheers,
    Bart

  10. #10
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    Yeah, I got the helpful information from you all.
    I can restore them, use later.
    Thank you all.

  11. #11
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    live1314,

    Welcome to Justlinux.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  12. #12
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    Welcome to Justlinux and a word of caution.....learn what to do to rescue your operating systems before you let anything overwrite your MBR.
    "I was pulled over for speeding today. The officer said, "Don't you know
    the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?" And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going
    to be out that long."

    How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
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  13. #13
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    Reviving the old threads, huh?

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