Linux partition not needed?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Linux partition not needed?
started by: bigkahuna

Posted by bigkahuna on Jan. 12 2005,18:18

Ok, I'm pretty confused.

I created a "poor man's" installation on my old Pentium 133 notebook. I have to boot it off the floppy because it doesn't support boot off CD.

I created a bootable floppy and copied KNOPPIX. to a directory on my C: drive. It boots off the floppy and runs fine.

But what I wanted to set up was a dual boot system (Win95 / DSL) off the hard drive. I created (using Partition Magic) a 504 mb Linux partition and an 80 Linux swap disk. I'm also using Boot Magic to control my boot sequence.

Now that I'm reading the DSL docs a bit more thoroughly, it looks like I'm heading in the wrong direction. It looks like I shouldn't even create a Linux partition and let DSL save to temp files on the Win/Dos partition?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

Thanks,

Paul

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 13 2005,03:42

You can do it either way, or you can keep doing what you are already doing.

There is no wrong answer.

You can do a full hd install to your linux partition and then set up lilo to dual boot win/dos and linux.

Or you can create a win/dos partition (FAT or FAT32) and do what's called a "Frugal Install" which is similar to the poorman's install but it also uses the lilo bootloader so the boot floppy isn't needed any more and you can also set up a dual boot arrangement.

You can save your DSL files and backup to your win/dos partition. The advantage of the frugal approach is that it uses less disk space and it is very easy to upgrade to a newer version of DSL (Basically, all you need to do is replace the current C:\knoppix\knoppix file with the file that is on the newest livecd). This disadvantage is that it is somewhat less customizable than a true hd install because the base files are stored inside the read only knoppix filesystem and you need extra RAM in order to customize your install as opposed to an hd install.

The choice is up to you.

My final bit of advice is that no matter what approach you take, please keep your 80MB linux swap partition. It is a good thing to have it for any kind of DSL configuration including a straight boot from livecd.

Hope this helps.