Swap files, Partitions, and terror

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Swap files, Partitions, and terror
started by: beekers

Posted by beekers on June 07 2005,00:44

Hi everyone, still trying to understand.
Recieved the CD last week and finally got it come up on my laptop. So now it to the point where I need to build a Swap File and a Partition for install, problem is HOW THE HECK DO YOU FIGURE IT OUT?

??? I have a 4.0gig HD and Windows XP S/2 configured in fat32. Can not get on the internet with DSL because I need to down load the drive for the Sony Erickson GC79 Lan card. If I work with DSL I don't want to loose my files that I make, also would like to use Open Office with DSL. I plan on removing window as soon as I get the hang of linux. I need to also move all my book marks, ect.

As stated before I have no real concept of any of this. I did download the DSL Book but I don't know what sizes and such. I have gone through the forms and been to other sights to tring to figure out. Can DSL be installed in fat 32 like windows or do I need to change the partition to ntfs?

I would appreiciate any and all help possible, really tired of win.

Thanks, beekers

Posted by Guest on June 07 2005,02:39

If your laptop can run Windows XP, you may not even need any swap file or partition. XP is such a memory hog compared to DSL. How much RAM do you have?

Were you able to boot DSL from the CD without any special settings? If you are, then we can consider you installation options depending on how much you want to have DSL share disk space with Windows.

Posted by clivesay on June 07 2005,03:11

I agree. If you're using XP on that machine probably no need for swap on that machine. I run with 512mb ram without swap very comfortably.

Prepare to have a happier PC. My dektop cpu fan runs almost 1000rpms higher when running XP Pro as opposed to running DSL. There's an amazing difference!

Welcome

Chris

Posted by beekers on June 07 2005,04:11

I am running 160 ram, the most I can upgrade to. How about files useing a LiveCD? Do I loose everythng once the shut down? How do you make a file in win. enviorment that opens with DSL operating?

Posted by iwillkillyou-loggedout on June 07 2005,12:57

it depends on the file... you won't get an exe running unless you install wine... if you want to watch a movie or something, install either xine or use xmms which comes with it...

yes you will lose everything when you reboot because everything is run in your ram, which also means you can't screw up your windows on the other driver short of using a certain formatting tool

as far as formatting goes, i suggest going into windows xp and using something like partition magic to cut off a piece of the free space since it's a little safer to do it in windows with that than to use cfdisk/fdisk

however, you should just learn everything you can from dsl and not touch your harddrive since you want to make sure you still have windows until you decide you just want linux.... like they said this works pretty good in just memory... i have a 200mhz processor and 110mb of ram and it isn't really all that bad unless i do somthing stupid like try to use openoffice.org

also since you have a little room, after you do learn some stuff and decide to use linux, go download something that is designed for harddrive installation.. like suse or slackware or something, those hd installers usually come with all the zingy zangy doodads most people don't need but they look cool

Posted by Guest on June 07 2005,15:46

When running from a LiveCD, you lose everything only if you want to. The makers of DSL made sure that you have the option to save your work and any custom settings you picked for the programs you use. You can make use of the backup system through the "filetool.lst", that is essentially a list of things you want saved for next sessions. This should work with your FAT32 disk; no need to format anything. It will just create the file "backup.tar.gz" on the disk. This is described in the documentation displayed immediately after you boot-up DSL.

You can also "mount" that FAT32 (a.k.a. vfat) hard disk and read/write on it while in DSL. It is "unmounted" by default (as with other Linux LiveCDs) to prevent you or any nasty programs from accidentally modifying anything on it.

Posted by beekers on June 08 2005,01:43

Thank you for all in info, I will try to make a seperate file for working on DSL and saving to the HD. No one said life was going to be easy, but they didn't tell me it was damn near impossible!
beekeers

Posted by AwPhuch on June 13 2005,18:14

You could use a program like [partition magic] to resize your XP partition and give yourself maybe 150-200 megs of either fat32 or ext2 partition behind it for your "backup" stuff to go...ext2 would be better as the XP wouldnt even see the partition...

Frugal as well would be good...cause then you could do a 400-500Meg ext2 partition and run it as "live cd" directly from your harddrive...however use a windows based partition resizer to change up the XP, cause trying to resize ntfs with linux will bork a system in a hurry!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by cbagger01 on June 13 2005,23:00

FYI,

I was able to resize my NTFS partition by using KNOPPIX livecd and QTPARTED.

I needed to defrag my Windows partition before rebooting into KNOPPIX and starting QTPARTED but otherwise it was a pretty straightforward task.