Linux & Partitioning for New Install

[DenTP4rm]

I have a real basic question but would appreciate as thorough an answer as possible. I looked through recent posts to this forum and didn't find answers to what I'm looking for.

I'm new to Linux. I want to do a fresh install on a T60p 2623DDU. I don't want to go with a CD or DVD version as I want to test it for some time and I don't want to dual boot as I'm not interested in messing with a stable HD.

I plan to use a 100GB SATA drive that already has my Thinkpad WinXP Pro install on it. (It's a clone and I have the working original on a separate drive.) I downloaded the CD images for SLED 10 from Novell and plan to install from that.

1. Should I just wipe the old install from this WinXP drive and start from scratch or will the Linux install take care of that, including the preload?
2. Does Linux use a different kind of file system than NTFS?
3. Assuming at some point I decide to drop Linux and go back to WinXP Pro, could I just reformat the Linux drive in Windows and clone my XP install back to the drive? I'm asking because I know nothing about the file system. Since, for example, you can't see an NTFS drive from a FAT32 drive I'm curious if the Linux partition would be visible from within Windows and if it does anything to mess with the drive architecture.
4. In Windows I like to use three partitions, a C: drive for the OS, a D: drive for programs and an E: drive for personal data. Is this possible and/or advisable in Linux? Or, would I be better off just making it one big partition?

thanks for the help,
DenTP4rm

[tom lightbody]

let's see whether I understand your situation. You have two HD's, on one XP, on the other [soon] linux.
You have no interest in dual booting, but you imagine at sometime you'd like to have XP on both drives--no linux.

If that's right, and if it were me, I'd use the drive with the preload as my linux drive, leaving the preload
intact for later, when I might want to use it. I have a drive like that--dual boot with w2k--here's the partition table:


Disk /dev/hda: 32.0 GB, 32003112960 bytes
15 heads, 63 sectors/track, 66144 cylinders
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 17357 8201151 c W95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 17358 29954 5952082+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 29955 63936 16056495 5 Extended
/dev/hda4 63937 66144 1043280 1c Hidden FAT32
/dev/hda5 29955 31467 714860 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda6 31468 63920 15334008 83 Linux

(sorry the formatting got messed up:-)
You won't have the first partition. If you had three linux partitions--ext3 filesystem, I would recommend,
quite different from any MS filesystem--then the first one (smallest) could be your / "root" partition, where
the OS and necessary utilities live, your second (bigger) could be for /usr where many executibles
reside that are not necessary for booting--and your third (biggest) for /home including /home/you, plus for any other users.

maybe this will help with some of your questions. If your experience with linux resembles mine, you will be
using it years from now in preference to any other OS .

[whizkid]

I'm a user of Fedora, so mea culpa.

1. Should I just wipe the old install from this WinXP drive and start from scratch or will the Linux install take care of that, including the preload?

Fedora allows one to erase all Linux partitions or ALL partitions. I'd hope SLED does the same. Since you have all your data on another drive, I'd erase the entire drive.

2. Does Linux use a different kind of file system than NTFS?

Yes. Ext3 is very common nowadays. However, Linux can read and write FAT and NTFS partitions. You'd think that since the ext3 code is GPL'ed someone would write a library to allow Windows to read and write ext3, but I don't know of such a thing.

3. Assuming at some point I decide to drop Linux and go back to WinXP Pro, could I just reformat the Linux drive in Windows and clone my XP install back to the drive? I'm asking because I know nothing about the file system. Since, for example, you can't see an NTFS drive from a FAT32 drive I'm curious if the Linux partition would be visible from within Windows and if it does anything to mess with the drive architecture.

You can always delete all your ext3 partitions. make NTFS partitions and restore your backup.

4. In Windows I like to use three partitions, a C: drive for the OS, a D: drive for programs and an E: drive for personal data. Is this possible and/or advisable in Linux? Or, would I be better off just making it one big partition?

For starting out, I'd let the distribution decide how to partition. For example, Fedora makes a 100MB /boot partition, a swap partition (not stored in a file like Windows), and a root partition where everything else goes. The great thing about cheap storage is you can buy an external drive, back everything up, repartition, boot off a CD and restore everything, so your partitioning decisions are not so cast in stone anymore. There's also LVM, which allows you to resize partitions on a live drive, but I avoid such black magic.

Best of luck!

[DenTP4rm]

Tom, thanks for the insights about Linux partitions. whizkid, very helpful point by point replies. That's basically what I needed to know but, if anybody has anything else to add I appreciate it.

Just clarifying one point. whizkid, you seem to indicate I could delete the Linux partitions from within WinXP. Is that the case? Or, would XP just "see" the drive but not the Ext3 partitions? I ask that as you indicated Windows could not read and write to Ext3.

Thanks for your patience and help,
DenTP4rm[/b]

[whizkid]

Using Windows disk manager, you can indeed delete Linux partitions. You can also delete partitions while installing Linux or Windows, and install on new partitions in the space of the old ones.

There are also programs on a CD that you can boot and use to edit partitions, make backups and restore files.

[Harryc]

Just clarifying one point. whizkid, you seem to indicate I could delete the Linux partitions from within WinXP. Is that the case? Or, would XP just "see" the drive but not the Ext3 partitions? I ask that as you indicated Windows could not read and write to Ext3.

XP disk management sees the partitions and will allow you to delete them, but you cannot read/write to them from XP.

[K0LO]

...You'd think that since the ext3 code is GPL'ed someone would write a library to allow Windows to read and write ext3, but I don't know of such a thing...

Check out ext2 Installable File System for Windows.

[syedj]

...You'd think that since the ext3 code is GPL'ed someone would write a library to allow Windows to read and write ext3, but I don't know of such a thing...

Check out ext2 Installable File System for Windows.

There is explore2fs application as well, although it only gives reliable read-only access to EXT2 partition.

explore2fs[www.chrysocome.net]

[DenTP4rm]

whizkid & Harryc thanks for the clarification on access to Linux partitions in XP. syedj and k0lo, the info on Ext2IFS was very helpful.

From the FAQ section of Ext2IFS I understood that:
1. You can see and, if necessary, delete Ext3 volumes from within Windows Disk Management with Ext2IFS installed. Correct?
2. Files on an Ext3 volume would be accessible from within Windows Explorer. Correct?
thanks,
DenTP4rm

[DenTP4rm]

Not wanting to start a whole new topic I just thought I'd ask, does DVI output from the Advanced Mini-dock work in Linux?
DenTP4rm

[whizkid]

Not wanting to start a whole new topic...

Starting a new thread makes it easier for others to search for answers.

[DenTP4rm]

Done!