• Steps to take if another operating system is already present on your hard disk
  • Buy a new hard disk
  • Change the size of your old partitions
• Choice of tool for handling Linux partitions
• Use of "Disk Druid"
  • Steps to take:
  • The swap partition:
  • The principal partition:
  • Addition of an NFS partition:
• Using "fdisk"

Creation of partitions for Linux

It is now necessary to describe the partitioning of your hard disk for Linux.

A partition is a software zone that is independent of your hard disk. You can have one partition containing Linux, another containing dos or Windows etc. On can also make several operating systems co-exist on the same disk.

For Linux, you will have to create at least two partitions:

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a principal partition

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a so-called "swap" partition (allowing the contents of RAM to be stored when it is too full)

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a partition for user directories

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a partition for programs which will be installed on the machine later on

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a partition for /tmp (temporary files)

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etc.

Steps to take if another operating system is already present on your hard disk

Before going on, you have to ask yourself if you are installing Linux-Mandrake on a completely unused hard disk (or one that may have been cleared) or if you already have one or more operating systems on the hard disk. For example, you may already have a Linux system installed, or Windows (95, 98, NT), or Dos...

In the latter case, it is highly possible that all available disk space is already allocated to you old operating system. There are several solutions:

Buy a new hard disk

There is a great chance that there is not enough recoverable disk space on your old disk. The Linux-Mandrake installation requires at least 250 MB if the graphical interface is installed. A good installation will need more like 300 MB. Whatever the case, installing Linux-Mandrake on a disk with less than 500 MB of recoverable or available space is not a very good idea as you will be very quickly limited as a result of lack of disk space.

Change the size of your old partitions

It you have at least 500 Mb of recoverable space on your old system, all you need to do is change the size of the partitions already being used. In order to do this, use the program "fips.exe) (under dos) or a commercial utility ("Partition Magick" for example). Only the program fips.exe is supplied with Linux-Mandrake. You will find it on the installation CD-ROM in the directory "dosutils/". The documentation on this utility (extensive) can be found in dosutils/fipsdoc/. Warning, "fips" allows you to resize dos and fat32 partitions only. Read carefully the documentation on this utility before starting. But be reassured, "fips" has been designed to provide a high level of security and it keeps your old disk configuration, which you can revert to is case of problem.

In all cases, you should interrupt the Linux-Mandrake installation procedure here if you need to change the size of your partitions, then restart it when you have finished.

Choice of tool for handling Linux partitions

Linux-Mandrake is supplied with two utilities, one, "Disk Druid", is simple and user friendly. The other, "fdisk", is older, but allows you to make more choices, and is therefore used only by seasoned Linux users.

We look at "Disk Druid" here in particular.

Use of "Disk Druid"

Choose "Disk Druid". You will see displayed on the screen the structures of partitions present on your hard disks.

Figure: Disk Druid

Linux uses a particular nomenclature for naming disks:

- each IDE disk is called /dev/hdx (for example, if you have two IDE disks, they will be called /dev/hda and /dev/hdb).

- each SCSI disk is called /dev/sdx (for example, /dev/sda and /dev/sdb).

The "Disk Druid" screen is divided into two parts. The first corresponds to all the partitions present on your system, the second to all the disks present. Also, a completely blank hard disk appears in the lower part, but not in the upper part as no partitions will be found on it.

You can move around the upper window buttons "Add", "Modify", "Delete", "OK", "Return" using the Tab^4.2 key. In the partitions window, you can move about with the arrow keys.

Steps to take:

You must have free space on one of your disks. Choose the "Add" button in order to create a new partition on you disks. You must choose its size bearing in mind that you will need at least two partitions for Linux: a principal partition and a swap partition (which allows you to store RAM during use). Note: these two partitions do not necessarily need to be on the same disk! One can even often increase performance by having the work partition or partitions on one disk and the swap partition on another. The ideal choice depends on the type of use of your system: workstation or server, type of disk (IDE or SCSI) etc.

The swap partition:

Start by deciding on the size of your swap partition: a simple rule is to take at least a size equivalent to the RAM available on your system, or a little more. You will be able to go up to just twice the size of your RAM. In any case, it is much better to have a swap partition which is too big than one that is too small! You will be limited to 128 MB^4.3.

Figure: Swap-partition settings

Create your new swap partition by pressing the "Add" button. In the dialogue box which appears, you will be able to choose the size in Megabytes (e.g. 80 MB) and type: "Linux Swap" in the menu on the right. If you tick the "extendable?" case, the size of the partition will adapt according to disk space available. You can untick certain cases of "drive allocated" in order to force "Disk Druid" to choose the disk on which to install the partition in question.

If there is already a linux system installed on your PC, it is not necessary to create a second swap partition: do not create a new partition. The old swap partition will be reused.

Click "OK" to validate your choices. In case of problem, you can modify the parameters by selecting the partition concerned in the upper menu and clicking on "Modify".

The principal partition:

Now choose the disk on which the principal partition will be installed. Click on "Add" to display the dialogue box for creation of a new partition.

Figure: Root-partition settings

Now indicate the "mount point" of this partition. This is the directory to which it will correspond. In all Unix systems, the "root" directory is "/" into which all sub directories are placed (under Linux, these will be: /bin /etc /opt /sbin /var /boot /home /misc /proc /tmp /dev /lib /usr etc.).

Now choose the size of your partition in Megabytes. For example: 500.

If you want this size to adapt itself dynamically according to the available space on your disk, tick the "Growable" option (by tapping the space bar).

Select the partition type: "Linux Native" in the menu on the right.

Now, select the disks which can be allocated. By default they can all be allocated. If you have the choice of: hda, hdb, and hdc and you wish that you principal partition is installed absolutely on hdb, untick the hda and hdc cases. If not, the partition will be installed on the first disk that has sufficient space to contain it.

Click "OK" to finish.

Addition of an NFS partition:

To add an NFS partition, tap F2 on your keyboard and specify:

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the Internet address of your NFS server. For example: myserver.mynetwork.moon

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the path of the mount point of the distant server. For example: /export/share

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the mounting directory on the station being used for installation. For example: /usr/share)

In case of problems during the creation of your partitions:

In case of problem or manipulation error, you can:

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either click on the "Return" button of the main Disk Druid menu. This will cancel all the modifications made.

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or edit the parameters of the partition causing a problem by selecting it and clicking on the "Modify" button.

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or delete the parameters of the partition causing a problem by selecting it and clicking on the "Delete" button, then recreating it starting from scratch with "Add".

When you are happy with your configuration, click "OK" so that all the modifications made are physically taken into account on your disk.

Using "fdisk"

If you encounter any great difficulties using "Disk Druid", try using "fdisk". The interface is much more frustrating but doesn't harm its efficiency.

Figure: fdisk use.

Here is a summary of the fdisk commands that you may find useful:

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To visualise the current list of partitions: "p" + "enter" keys

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Help (complete description of commands): "m" + "enter" keys

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To create a new partition: "n" + "enter" keys

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To clear a partition: "d" + "enter" keys

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List of partition types ("Linux Swap": 82, "Linux Native": 83): "l" +"enter" keys

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To modify the type of a partition: "t" + "enter" keys (do not forget to change the type for the swap partition!)

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To quit and cancel all modifications: "q" + "enter" keys

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To save all modifications and quit: "w" + "enter" keys