Software and install

[Talvi]

Hi

BACKGROUND
Loathe Win 7, how slow it is, how it prioritises activity; I love "simple" clean, customisable UI (for functionality not coolness) ... so LMDE seems the way to go but comments re instability are a bit worrying ...

SOFTWARE
If software isn't listed on this site/the portal, it won't run in LMDE?? I guess the answer is yes, but I have key records still stored in Palm OS format!

INSTALLATION
How big is the download?
How big is the install?
Does it need a partitioned HDD/SDD?
Can it be booted from a USB drive?
I imagine there is going to be a transfer honeymoon (salt-moon?) so what I am wondering is can I switch back and forth between LMDE and Win7??


A side issue....
I have thousands of emails in nested folders in Outlook Express. I was thinking to reinstall XP, export and then use Pegasus. Some say Thunderbird keeps the folder structure but I haven't been able to get it to work at all (import pops up a screen asking what to import from but with no alternatives - probably because it can't find the OE files). Any advice/suggestions welcome


Thanks in advance

[irianx]

Hi,

instability: I am using LMDE for internet, emails, VoIP, office and a WinXP virtual machine - no instabilities found

software: LMDE is based on Debian. Inside LMDE you have an own tool to handle actually 36.609 software packages (not all are applications and not each package is an application, but to have a number). I think you will not find a better supported linux distribution.

download: around 1GB

install: around 4GB

partitions: of course, you cannot have an operating system without partitions. You can try a Live-System from a USB device, so you do not need to have a partition at your HDD. But if you would like to be performant, you should get some space at your HDD (or a new HDD) and install LMDE there. The install tool will supervise you what to do. (But be carefully, to not destroy your windows partition)

USB drive: download the iso image from LMDE site and use the freeware windows tool "Linux Live USB creator" (google is your friend) to prepare a USB device for a "live system"

honeymoon: do not know such think. If you install LMDE you get a bootloader installed. At each startup the bootloader will ask you if you would like to start win or LMDE.

emails: porting emails from outlook express is nasty. You shall perform own tests. I would also propose to use thunderbird for this action. You can get thunderbird from the "software handling tool" inside LMDE at three clicks (more or less). And if you have problems, you shall search at google for other poor people which have tried the same porting.

Hope this helps.

[widget]

Try the Live Session on the Live DVD.

This will not effect your box at all. Will be somewhat slow. Will run from DVD and your ram.

I think you will find that the vfs file system is quite readable (and writable).

When (I do not say if) you install do it on 2 partitions. / (root) and /home. Make root about 10 gigs so you have some room to add things. Make /home as big as you can afford to make it.

Have the installer install grub on the drive. This is putting grub (boot loader) on the MBR where your MS bootloader is now. Grub should, with no problem, pick up your MS install and boot it just fine. May be a faster boot than when using the MS boot loader (is on my Dreaded Mother in Laws Vista box anyway).

[Talvi]

Wow wow wow!!! Amazing replies Thank you so much!

@ irianx :
Brilliant! I think it may be easier to install directly to my HDD, then I can properly see how it compares. There's over 200GB free (NTFS) on my HDD. I started off trying to setup a Live-System on a USB stick but can't see an advantage to that now. I "just" need to figure out how to partition the HDD I use without destroying it (my machine is my life). I'm certain it's not nearly as complicated as it sounds...??

Is the Install Tool a part of the LMDE download??

I've downloaded LMDE to a 8GB USB stick but haven't and don't know how to run it: Just double click the IronPortable.exe file? What's the iron-linux.tar.gz file? ...
I downloaded the ubuntu iso before I discovered Mint but haven't downloaded the LMDE iso ....
I think I need to start over, but where!??

@ widget :
My machine hasn't got a DVD It's a netbook, bought as a stopgap that I fell in love with (and my custom desktop is unused! I back up to an ext HDD so I just need to figure a way to use an ext backup as the central storage for both machines to refer to and I'll be away!)

I don't understand NTFS FAT VFS etc. At the moment my netbook has one (I assume) NTFS partition with 200GB free.

But ... that word "should" is worrying me, Widget : "Grub should, with no problem, pick up your MS install and boot it just fine". Do you have any suggestions for a backup plan if it doesn't??

[irianx]

Be careful. Partitioning of an existing HDD is like having a house and splitting it into two houses. But partitioning means to destroy one halve of your house and build a new house to get two. So all stuff (files) from the destroyed half will be lost, forever. Also there is a risk, that this half of the house you would like to keep will be damaged or even destroyed too

I encourage you to do you planned actions but be careful. Here a short description what to do.

1) !!! Do a backup of ALL your private files to an external drive BEFORE starting any actions with partitioning !!!
2) Do another backup of your files to another external device
3) Check if all your backups are OK
4) Start windows and start a partitioning tool (win7 does have such a tool "onboard")
5) Try to reduce the size of the windows partition (e.g. 20GB)
-> if this action fails then you need to do a re-install of your windows (and during re-install you can reserve some HDD area for LMDE) - lot of work is waiting for you
-> if this succeeds, you lucky, you can continue to install LMDE

How to install LMDE:
1) download the iso image
2) create a live USB device (using the windows tool mentioned in my last post)
3) reboot using this USB device
4) LMDE is started
5) double click the icon at desktop called "Install LMDE"
6) follow the instructions of installer
7) at partition selection, tell the installer to use the "unused area" (this is the area you get empty by reducing the size of your windows partition)
after installation is finished, the "grub" will be installed to your HDD (you must accept this option) and in normal case, you have then a boot menu to select win or LMDE. About your question "what to do if not" -> again lot of work and another thread should be openend

Enjoy, have patience, be careful and brave - so in few years and several trials later you will be able to setup your desktop without support

[Talvi]

and another amazing answer irianx, thanks! .. but no leaps in the dark for me ... Win7 partitioning tool seems easy enough so, assuming no probs with "shrinking", I need a strategy.

There are currently 3 partitions on my HDD: Recovery(13GB), C(220GB), and System(100MB) but I have a really basic question .... "Where" is Windows??

I am guessing that I could do with ... one partition for Windows, one for LMDE and one for data/my files?? I can have 4 partitions in Win7, without getting into extended partitions, but Widget said install LMDE on 2 partitions (root 10GB + whatever is left) so is that two more partitions than the three I already have or...?? and would my data be going in the "second" of those Widget proposed??

Grub is presumably a smallish bit of code that can be put in several places ... and the LMDE installer will say where??

I've come across this for ubuntu: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/wubi (suggests no need to partition, using "windows installer"and "wubi") I'd appreciate your comments, as I assume there's a similar technique available for LDME?? If so maybe this could be a stopgap?

p.s.
I have a lateral-ish question, whatever the strategy for numbers and sizes:- should all the partitions (or the new partitions) be "Simple"? The existing 3 are but ... I've been wanting a strategy for using an external drive as the primary backup and storage resource for multiple machines and reading a little ... maybe the data partition I'm going to make should be RAID and then maybe I could have a RAID partition on an external HDD and on the other machine ...?? But I guess a RAID array needs to be permanently connected..

[irianx]

windows is propably at partition "C" (even I am confused about a partition with name "system")

LMDE will tell you where to install grub; usually it is the first hard disk (mostly called "sda")

for your first LMDE installation, I would propose you to create only one single partition for LMDE, as big you need it; if you do not want to "reorganize" your complete hard disk, then you have also to avoid the usually created "swap" partition from linux (because you need then extended partitions)

wubi: I have tried it once. It is a nice hint to "try" linux, but it is not a solution if you plan to "use" linux. I think for LMDE there is no wubi similar hint available.

my proposal: create only simple partitions (as long it is possible for you) and do NOT use RAID until you feel that you have reached the state "expert" You get more problems you expect and less advantages you hope

I will show you how I have planned to partition my PC next years:
1) desktop: 150GB linux (incl. server files),, 350GB home, 450GB video (recorder), 4GB swap
2) netbook: 150GB win7 (incl win software), 150GB linux (incl. server files), 150GB home, 2GB swap (4 simple partitions)
3) netbook: 8GB linux, 3GB home, 1GB swap

[Talvi]

Great irianx

windows is propably at partition "C" (even I am confused about a partition with name "system")
for your first LMDE installation, ....
my proposal: create only simple partitions (as long it is possible for you) and do NOT use RAID until you feel that you have reached the state "expert" You get more problems you expect and less advantages you hope

So just shrink and make a new partition from the unallocated space.

Great, but what still eludes me (well one of the things!) is where will my files go/be?? Will they be on the Windows partition (whichever that is) or in the LMDE one?? It makes a difference as I don't want to have two filing systems (in the non-IT sense of those words) for my stuff (as opposed to the files my machine uses to make itself work).

[irianx]

Your data is not moved at any other partition so it is still there where it is actually located. During LMDE installation only operating system is located to new partition. Your data will still be at (propably) "C". From LMDE it is possible to access this data. But it is NOT possible to access the LMDE partition if you are starting windows.

[widget]

If you have one NTFS partition with 200Gigs free you have not problem.

Using the MS partitioning tool is probably a good idea for your peice of mind but not really needed. Where you run into problems with Linux based partitioning tools is if you have not set up the rules correctly and are changing the BEGINNING of the MS (ntfs) partition. Changing the end of it, as long as you are leaving free space in the ntfs partition should cause you no problem.

That "should" is there because there is always the chance of things going wrong. I have, currrently, 13 installs (12 on 2 partitions and 1 on 3 partitions). This is always changing. Had 27 on here some time ago. Have never had partitioning with Linux tools go wrong. There is no ntfs on this box.

I maintain my Dreaded Mother in Laws computer. It has 2 ntfs partitions, an extended partitions with 4 logical partitions inside it (3 ext4 and one swap). Shrinking one ntfs partition was done with Gparted as was all the other partitioning. Has Ubuntu 8.04 and Debian Wheezy sharing a /home partition on the ext4 partitions (8.04 will be removed when I get Wheezy all set up for her).

The suggestion of backup, all that said, is still a really, really good idea.

All your ntfs files will still be on the resized ntfs partition no matter what tool you use to do the partitioning.

If you do loose files when partitioning it is actually possible to recover them. I don't say it is easy but you can do it using the package "testdisk" that is in the repo. Must be added to the live session of a Live CD or USB stick. So don't panic if you do loose something to some dumb mistake (been there done that myself). Backups prevent this being needed.

You will save yourself a lot of problems by installing on a / (root) partition and a /home partition. Make / 10 to 20gigs (if you like to install a LOT of packages 30gigs is not too much. If you don't add much 10gigs is not too small at all). Put a small swap partition on the end (size of your ram and what you do with the box determines the need for and size of the swap partition). /home is the rest of what ever room you have.

With 200gigs free on the ntfs partition I would reduce that to 50. This would give you something like / at 10G, /swap at 2?G adn /home at about 138G.

This is nice if you screw your OS (I did a lot of that on my first install). You can reinstall over the / partition and instruct the installer to not format the /home partition thus saving all your files in user land (backup still a good idea).

Personally I like a biger / partition. This is my production OS (Debian testing) and it has 30G. I will fill it in a year or two. That may not be the case for you. Don't go smaller than 10 although you could probably get it installed and use it quite a while with just 5.

You can only have a total of 4 primary partitions on a drive. What you have is I primary right now. You could install the way I suggest with all primary partitions.

An Extended partition is actually a type of primary partition. The difference is that you can have a bunch of Logical partitions inside the Extended partition. Each of them is seen by your bios as a working partition so they work as well as primaries and just add flexibility to your drive configuration.

You could (just an example not a suggestion) use your 150gigs for 5 two partition (/ and /home) Linux installs that would work very well. You only need one /swap for multi installs. They will all use the same one.

You can also have several / partition use the same /home partition but that is a little (very little) trickier and not automatic like the shared /swap. Don't recommend the shared /home on a first install but you should know it is a possibility if you want to try other distros or some different configuration of the same distro in the future.

The flexibility of the Linux file system is just amazing and a lot of fun. Gets more fun the more you learn. Just kind of nice to know what you can look forward to.

The thing you must keep in mind is to HAVE FUN.

[Talvi]

Your data is not moved at any other partition ...it is NOT possible to access the LMDE partition if you are starting windows.

Thanks irianx, I'm going to install LMDE on my desktop (which I don't use!) so I can "play". From what you say I will see both the LMDE partition and C: when booting via Linux but not the LMDE partition when booting from Windows... To make sure there is no confusion all my "data files" should be in one partition so not the LMDE one. I need to figure out where Windows is and then make sure the Windows boot partition and the LMDE boot partition are as small as possible anjd the C: partition is as big as possible. Have I got it right??

If you have one NTFS partition with 200Gigs free you have not problem....
You will save yourself a lot of problems by installing on a / (root) partition and a /home partition. Make / 10 to 20gigs If you don't add much 10gigs is not too small at all). Put a small swap partition on the end (size of your ram and what you do with the box determines the need for and size of the swap partition). /home is the rest of what ever room you have.
With 200gigs free on the ntfs partition I would reduce that to 50. This would give you something like / at 10G, /swap at 2?G adn /home at about 138G.
Don't go smaller than 10 although you could probably get it installed and use it quite a while with just 5.
You could (just an example not a suggestion) use your 150gigs for 5 two partition (/ and /home) Linux installs that would work very well. You only need one /swap for multi installs. They will all use the same one.
You can also have several / partition use the same /home partition but that is a little (very little) trickier and not automatic like the shared /swap. Don't recommend the shared /home on a first install but you should know it is a possibility if you want to try other distros or some different configuration of the same distro in the future.

The thing you must keep in mind is to HAVE FUN.

Thanks again Widget but I'm struggling to understand this. I know it would make sense if I already knew what you were talking about if you see what I mean but as I don't ... I'm struggling

I understand my files aren't going to shift from where they are, I just don' want my filing system to get overcomplex when I start all this partitioning. I have TWO primary partitions at the moment: C: and a "System Reserved" partition. There's also a "untitled "Recovery Partition". This is not labelled as a Primary partition.

C: "contains - <Boot, Pagefile, CrashDump>, and the "System Reserved" contains -<System, Active>

I understand the terminology of "/" etc but Windows has moved away from using it in the UI hence part of my confusion as to what is what and asking "where" Windows "is" on my existing setup. Is it in C or in "System reserve"? Do the details given by my system tell me or do I need some other tool to be able to look at the disk. maybe I can do it from the command prompt....??

You've provided a lot of options re sizing and labelling but I'm not clear how those relate to what I already have. There isn't one terminology I can see to use. /, /home, c, system reserve, recovery, untitled, swap, and so on, and I don't know what "packages" refers to either or despite all the info on the different file systems why I should care about ntfs etc.

The problem I see with your plan generally in light of what irianx writes is that reduucing C: to a minimum will mean from then on splitting my personal filing (the only files I actually am interested in!) between the existing ntfs 220GB partition reduced to whatever, and whatever I put for the LMDE partition.

Fun isn't the term that springs to mind for this Widget

[widget]

OK.

Think what the word partition means.

You currently have a 3 room structure. Like rooms in a building they are separated by partitions. If you move the "walls" around it does not effect the contents or their possitions as long as you don't move the walls so that they are sitting on the contents.

You now have 3 primary partitions. I do not know what you are using to determine what the partitions are but labeling is not how that is determined. Labeling is naming a partition. For instance the partitions that make up the install that I am on right now are labeled Squeezy-root and Squeezy-home. They show up in the file manager of other installs that way. This has nothing to do with what type of partition they are. They are actually logical partitions but that does not effect the label.

Your file system is the format of whatever partition you are talking about. Your MS partitions are probably all ntfs but I am not sure of that as I don't do windows here. My Dreaded Mother in Law has three partitions for her Vista install and I think they are all that but one is the boot sector and I don't remember if it is ntfs or not.

This does not matter really. Your concern is messing the file system up. Resizing will not mess with the format of a partition at all. As long as you leave the partition bigger than the contents nothing will be changed except the size of the partition.

All of your partitions are Primary. There is no reason for the folks that put the partition table in place to do any thing else. If they were not Primary you would not have 3 partitions you would have 4. The 2 you know to be Primary, 1 Extended, and the Recovery partition would be a Logical inside and probably completely filling the Extended. Why would they do that? It is extra work for no reason.

You can only have 4 Primary partitions on a drive under the dos file system rules. This became, a long time ago, a liability to that HDD format. So they changed it to include a modified Primary partition.

This is the Extended partition. It can contain Logical partitions.

Your bios know these rules. They are what makes the bios able to detect the partitions. Your bios will have no trouble with an Extended partition or the Logical partitions within it.

How Windows will number them is beyond me. Don't know and don't care. They will be numbered (lettered in the case of Windows) by what ever system Windows uses to deal with the information from the bios. This will work.

Linux will list the three Primaries (assuming you have a sata drive) as sda1, sda2 and sda3. The Extended will be sda4. The first Logical created will be sda5 and so forth.

It would probably help you to fire up the LiveCD, pull up gparted and take a screen shot and post it here from the live session. That way folks could answer any questions you have while referring to your screen shot. That way you can look at it and have a better concept of what they are saying.

I never fooled with partitioning before installing Linux. Mess with it all the time now because I enjoy it. I do, however, remember very well the feeling of doing it the first time. I did not even have the worries you have as I simply took out the HDD that came with the computer and put in a new one. So I had a blank slate to work with and no worry about screwing up something I might possibly want later.

Your concerns are not only warranted but quite a relief to me. You could have done something with partial understanding and we could now be trying to figure out what you had done and how to recover your data. This is much better.

You should not mess with partitioning until you feel you understand what you are doing. And somewhat comfortable doing it.

I mention this because once you do it you may feel a little silly about your worries. There is nothing silly about it.

Partitioning is a powerful tool. It gives you great control over the efficient use of your HDD. Like all powerful tools it can be very destructive.

Going back to the building comparison, a large saw with carbide tips is great for taking a partition out. Cuts through nails and screws. Saves a lot of mess and work. Will also cut through electrical wires and any plumbing that gets in the way.

It is really a good thing to find out what you are doing before taking such a tool to your house. Also a good idea to find out what you are doing before taking such a tool to your HDD.

Questions first is MUCH better than screwing your system and then asking how to fix it. A lot faster too.

We at the other end may occasionally think "geeze, the guy just doesn't get it". Then we will remember when we did the same thing. Or maybe didn't ask first.

Just keep asking. We'll get over it. We really do not want to help you recover your drive. That can be done too but it is not as fun as partitioning correctly the first time.