HD install on WinXP system
Forum: HD Install
Topic: HD install on WinXP system
started by: Vito
Posted by Vito on Dec. 21 2005,10:47
Hello everybody, first of all sorry for my bad English, I'm Flemish, and that's also the reason why I have to ask this question: I read it all but I'm not able to understand it completely
This is my problem.
I have a windowsXP PC with 3 partitions, 30 GB NTFS for Xp, 8 GB ext2 for DSL (just made it with Partition Magic) and 2 GB for win98. I boot with the GAG bootmanager between XP and w98.
I now want to install DSL on the 8 GB ext2 partition, thus loading DSL with the 'install' option. But then I get confused ... DSL ask me what partition to create ..and erm ..there IS a ext2 partition already. I have no idea what to do next, I'm very scared to harm winXP because my wife also uses the PC. And we all know how bitchy a woman can be if her hubby does something terribly wrong
So please guide me in this process, if this is written already somewhere else, please give me the link.
Many many thanks and greetings from Flanders/Belgium
Vito
Posted by skaos on Dec. 21 2005,12:00
Maybe you could use VMware player instead, i.e. running DSL as a virtual machine inside WinXP:< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=9475 >
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=9288 >
Posted by Vito on Dec. 21 2005,14:25
| Quote (skaos @ Dec. 21 2005,07:00) |
| Maybe you could use VMware player instead, i.e. running DSL as a virtual machine inside WinXP: < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=9475 > < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=9288 > |
Thanks for your reply, but I really want to run DSL from HD to keep it as fast as possible. My pc is a slow one, only 533 Mhz / 512 MBram, and I hope to make it fast running DSL. I had Linux before on this machine ( Suse, Yoper - but don't get me wrong: I'm still a newbie to Linux ) but it was rather slow for KDE, and because my wife wanted to use the PC too I changed to XP, not fast also however ....
DSL seems a very good alternative for me to get back to Linux, if I understand it correctly DSL can run fast on my machine and when it is bootable from HD I have everything I want to keep on learning Linux. And using it instead of XP, of course
Is it correct that copying the files from te Live CD to a linux parttion ( ext2 ? ) is enough ?
Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 21 2005,14:39
That, plus adding the new system to your bootloader, is enough to run a frugal system. In this case, make sure you add "dsl frugal" to your boot parameters in order to utilize the rest of the 8gb. Frugal runs in the same way as the liveCD, but is much faster since it is on a harddrive instead of CD. Also be sure to do a little research on topics such as mydsl and backup/restore so you can retain your settings and applications when you reboot.
Posted by Vito on Dec. 21 2005,17:36
| Quote (mikshaw @ Dec. 21 2005,09:39) |
| That, plus adding the new system to your bootloader, is enough to run a frugal system. In this case, make sure you add "dsl frugal" to your boot parameters in order to utilize the rest of the 8gb. Frugal runs in the same way as the liveCD, but is much faster since it is on a harddrive instead of CD. Also be sure to do a little research on topics such as mydsl and backup/restore so you can retain your settings and applications when you reboot. |
I copied the files ...
hda1 is the NTFS winXP partition
hda2 is the fat32 win98 partition
hda5 the ext2 DSL partition
But my bootloader says it can't find the boot sector for Linux. I use GAG as bootloader for a long time now and if memory serves I once used it to boot one of the Linux distro's ....
Maybe it was smarter to instal GRUB when copying the files
Any idea what can be wrong?
Please keep in mind I'm still a Linux newbie and certainly not a compter guru
Thanks for the help ( and your patience ... )
Vito
Posted by Vito on Dec. 21 2005,19:46
Hello,Maybe I found the reason why GAG doesn't boot DSL ...
This is what I found in the GAG f.a.q:
<quote>
6. I can't boot Linux from GAG. What can I do?
Be sure you have installed LILO in the SuperBlock of your Linux partition.
That is, if your root partition is /dev/hda8, be sure you install LILO in
/dev/hda8, not in /dev/hda.
</quote>
If I understand it correctly I must alter lilo.conf with the correct parameters and run LILO so it installs itself in /dev/hda5 ...no?
Sorry if I'm a pain in the *ss
But as we all know ... a fool can ask more questions than thousand wise men can answer
Vito
Posted by pvdvyve on Dec. 24 2005,20:45
Hi, I'm Flemish or Belgian too. Waasland, Belgium must be familiar to you. I use dsl since a while. I once made a setup next to mswin95, it still runs smoothly.Now about your questions, I don't know the boot loader you use. I used lilo a lot, grub and simetimes xosl.
The best thing to do is installing dsl wih the dsl-installer and run lilo on the partition you installed dsl in. once you managed to do so, you have to tell your boot manager to boot from the bootloader in your partition where you installed lilo (dsl).
Another possibility is to put lilo from within the install of dsl to the MBR from your first HD.
If you ruin your setup, take a look at the fora of KNOPPIX, you still will be able to reset your MBR from mswinxp.
If you have an old computer take a look at it, it may be very usefull to learn a lot about GNU/Linux. Remember what I said in the beginning of my answer, the computer used for dsl next to mswin95, is a Pentium 75Mhz, with 48 Mb RAM, I bought a 5 EUR ethernetcard and had a lot of fun on the internet with it.
By the way I'am doing this using DSL 0.6 on an "old" computer too (Pentium3, 450Mhz, with 160Mb RAM(in fact 64, but I put temporarily 96Mb extra in it), it's not mine, just making win98 to run again, cleaning viruses, spyware and sh*t like that) .
By the way: Why is your wife still using MS, I use GNU/Linux, my wife does, and my three kids do. We don't need MS anymore. And my wife and me do use it for a lot, to make courses for school, to do banking, games etc.
Suck6 with your experiment.