Dualboot and partions?

Husse · Post by **Husse** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:27 am

Welcome to Mint mogwai
I suppose you have XP already. Start with a defrag, and if you find a defragmenter that shifts all files towards one end of the disk that's fine. Normal Windows defrag may leave files after a wide gap of empty disk. Check carefully use the defrag analysis to see if there are files "way out".
You can then resize the windows partition. How much you leave for windows depends on how you intend to use your computer - but lets say 15 GB win and 25 GB Mint.The best way is actually to do this before install from the live CD and leave 25 GB as unused space - the installer likes that better.
In the 25 GB create a root ( / ) partition of 4 GB and the rest for a /home partition. In Linux all your data is kept in home. This way you can reinstall without loosing data.
Select manual partitioning when you install to have full control over this.
Gnome or KDE is a matter of taste. In Mint I would recommend gnome, it has a look you recognize (our gnome is a bit tweaked)
MInt can read and write to ntfs and fat32
Windows can't read ext3 which I recommend you use without some third party software
So you can share your windows partition(s) easily

newW2 · Post by **newW2** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 9:26 am

mogwai: try this one...
http://linuxgazette.net/136/lazar.html

linuxviolin · Post by **linuxviolin** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 10:44 am

Here what I advise you:

Primary partitions:

13 GB to Windows [NTFS]
6 GB to / (Linux Mint) [ext3]

Extended partitions:

20 GB to /home (Linux Mint) [ext3] or 10 GB in FAT32 (to share your files) and 10 GB /home in ext3 (adapt the size according to your needs, maybe 5 GB and 15 GB is better...)
1 GB to swap (Linux Mint)

Install Windows in first. You will have the choices to choose your Linux partitions (/ and /home) and their format (ext3) during the install of Mint.

Mint can read and write on Windows file system (NTFS) but Windows can't on Linux (ext3) so if you want to share some files between both systems, it is better to have also a partition in FAT32. Windows and Linux can read and write on this.

ext3 is Linux file system. / is the system partition. /home is your personal folder. Swap is a partition for virtual memory, and you can use a documentation for Ubuntu because Mint is based on Ubuntu. So what applies to Ubuntu applies to Mint.

linuxviolin · Post by **linuxviolin** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 11:40 am

Install Windows in a 13 GB C: partition in NTFS and make a 10 GB D: partition in FAT32.
There thus remain 17 GB of free space which you will divide during the installation of Mint.

Husse · Post by **Husse** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 2:41 pm

I think you will make it. And remember - use a bout 4 GB for a root ( / ) partition and the rest of the Mint section for a /home partition

Og mogwai posta i det danska eller svenska forumet om sprÃ¥ket blir att hinder

linuxviolin · Post by **linuxviolin** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 7:19 pm

Maybe your CD is bad. Did you check the MD5 before burning? Try to burn another disc, perhaps still download the ISO, it is maybe broken. (http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... on_Windows)

mogwai wrote:There was an error strating the Gnome settings Daemon

I guess that it is a known problem with the LiveCD. I had it with Bianca, with Cassandra I do not remember (it is too far

) but normally that should not prevent you from using the LiveCD. After the install you should not have this message any more.

To make the installation do not forget to keep the default settings:

Installation Notes:
- do not install anything and keep your session in English if you're planning to install. You can always change the language once the system is installed (this is due to a problem in the installer).

(http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html)

Husse · Post by **Husse** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:02 am

modprobe: WARNING: Not loading blacklisted module ipv 6

This is supposed to happen. This module (=driver) can cause problems and ipv6 is hardly in use yet.

Wrong chipset installed ..915 *something* onlu works on INTEL 800/900?

This is something that we all get if we don't have intel - it's an attempt to use the intel chipset driver, for some reason the system tries to load it on all systems. When installed just remove it (through synaptics)

[198.944000] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
[237.048000] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0

This could be harmless - it seems that it tries to read from the floppy (floppy = fd0)
Did you see the desktop?
As linuxviolin says it may be a faulty disk - always check the md5 (in windows you have to install a md5 checker - and only check the md5 of the entire ISO) and burn at the slowest speed possible - 2x if you can

Husse · Post by **Husse** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:08 pm

You have one disk - thats sda
All disk partitions are in /dev (but can't be used from there, it's just "where the hardware turns up")
They are the mounted in different locations /media being the most used for "non special" partitions
You wanted to use a 10 GB partition to share between Linux and Windows - that would be sda5 - it's unknown because it is not formatted (I think)
Then you have free space - no partition there yet.
The next thing you have to do is to create an extended partition of the entire free space (this is because of the four primary partition limit)
In the extended partition you create three logical partitions with the following mount points:
swap about 1 GB
/ root about 4 GB
and /home the rest
There is a pull down menu to select from.
To do this you must select the advanced partitioning - I'm sorry I don't remember if it's called that - the last choice at the bottom anyway.
As you see mount point is simply "where you want the partition to be"
Now a word of caution - install Windows first if it's not installed, because it will destroy grub if installed after Linux
It's no big deal to fix it - there is a how to in the wiki - but I don't want you to have to do that

linuxviolin · Post by **linuxviolin** » Sun Aug 05, 2007 7:59 pm

mogwai wrote:But I manage to come to step 6 out of 7 in cassandra and then I wait 30 minuts and nothing happens

Does the computer freeze? Do you still have access to the keyboard, the mouse?

Steps 6 and 7 are the last configuration steps before the installation itself (define the user and summary before install).
So it's when you click on install that "nothing happens"?

Are you sure of your CD? Maybe a burning problem...

I point out just a small hint to you: at http://www.linuxmint.com/download.html you can see

Installation Notes:
- do not install anything and keep your session in English if you're planning to install. You can always change the language once the system is installed (this is due to a problem in the installer).

Maybe this is your problem.......