OS and HD format advice

OS and HD format advice

[Have Dog Will Travel]

I have a 74.5GB HD with Windows XP Home Edition. I also have RedHat 7.3 ISOs
on CD RWs. I was thinking of partitioning the HD to three partitions;
C:\Windows Xp Home Edition 35GB, D:\Windows 98SE 4.5GB and E:\Linux  35GB. I
will need to move my CD RW and DVD ROM drives to other drive letters. My PC
also has 512MB of RAM. I have no sight so I am not sure how to partition the
drive with some sighted assistance. I am becoming interested in Gnopericus.
I am not sure if I should install the RedHat 7.3 and some how upgrade the
the Red hat Linux. I hate Windows, however, I have two groups that use
Microsoft Office 2000: at some point I will need to look at installing a
windows console program like Samba. I do abunch of HTML programming and
demostrations. I am also looking into learning C,JAVA and Pearl programming
languages. I started with a Commodore 64 in july 1984. I also have a DECTalk
Ex press that works wwell with Speakup and I am thinking of eventially
moveing to my Sound Blaster sound card and useing the DECTalk as a backup.
My ISP is a cable service. I would like to hear some advice?

Angus MacKinnon
Adaptive Computer Educator, ACE
Email: MAILTO:flodabay@hotmail.com
Web Page: http://members.shaw.ca/dabneyadfm
Choroideremia Research Foundation Inc.
http://www.choroideremia.org

Re: OS and HD format advice

[Norman Robinson]

Depending on your comfort level and experience you
could script the redhat installation using RedHat's
KickStart;
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/KickStart-HOWTO-6.html
or
consider that RedHat's 7.3 version's text mode is
readable by whatever tools you have;
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.3-Manual/install-guide/s1-guimode-textinterface.html
specifically there is a text based partition manager.

Since you have XP now you might want to consider using
PowerQuest's PartionMagic - but I'm not sure how
accessible it is to you (I've never used JAWS with it
for instance)

Also, another difficulty will be getting the installs
done in the correct order. I suggest the best article
I've read is on:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win98/Q_20271214.html

Hope this helps!

BTW, I'm a sighted user. Just joined the group as I am
learning JAWS and other accessibility tools as part of
my work with Windows. I have been a longtime Linux
user. Please excuse me if I'm not helping, being
ignorant of how to approach the problem from your
perspective.

Be well,

Norman

--- Have Dog Will Travel <flodabay@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I have a 74.5GB HD with Windows XP Home Edition. I
> also have RedHat 7.3 ISOs
> on CD RWs. I was thinking of partitioning the HD to
> three partitions;
> C:\Windows Xp Home Edition 35GB, D:\Windows 98SE
> 4.5GB and E:\Linux  35GB. I
> will need to move my CD RW and DVD ROM drives to
> other drive letters. My PC
> also has 512MB of RAM. I have no sight so I am not
> sure how to partition the
> drive with some sighted assistance. I am becoming
> interested in Gnopericus.
> I am not sure if I should install the RedHat 7.3 and
> some how upgrade the
> the Red hat Linux. I hate Windows, however, I have
> two groups that use
> Microsoft Office 2000: at some point I will need to
> look at installing a
> windows console program like Samba. I do abunch of
> HTML programming and
> demostrations. I am also looking into learning
> C,JAVA and Pearl programming
> languages. I started with a Commodore 64 in july
> 1984. I also have a DECTalk
> Ex press that works wwell with Speakup and I am
> thinking of eventially
> moveing to my Sound Blaster sound card and useing
> the DECTalk as a backup.
> My ISP is a cable service. I would like to hear some
> advice?
> 
> Angus MacKinnon
> Adaptive Computer Educator, ACE
> Email: MAILTO:flodabay@hotmail.com
> Web Page: http://members.shaw.ca/dabneyadfm
> Choroideremia Research Foundation Inc.
> http://www.choroideremia.org
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list


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Re: OS and HD format advice

[Rafael Skodlar]

Whether you are installing one or more operating systems it's a good
idea to create more partitions than it initialy looks you need. That
makes it much easier for upgrades and backups.

My suggestion is to start with installing windows followed by Linux
creating multiple partitions. For example

Windows partition of whatever size followed by

/ 200 MB
/usr 3.5 GB
/var 200 MB
/tmp 300 MB
/home the rest of the disk

that will provide you with flexible environment for upgrades or
distribution switching, if you ever decide to do that, while preserving
your critical work. Linux can read files on W2000 partition but it's not
recommended to write to it so you may want to have another DOS partition
for sharing files.

You do not need to depend on Microsoft Office 2000 anymore since Linux
comes with well supported Open Office. I'm not sure about support for 
unsighted people.

-- 
Rafael


On Fri, May 23, 2003 at 11:41:30AM -0700, Have Dog Will Travel wrote:
> I have a 74.5GB HD with Windows XP Home Edition. I also have RedHat 7.3 ISOs
> on CD RWs. I was thinking of partitioning the HD to three partitions;
> C:\Windows Xp Home Edition 35GB, D:\Windows 98SE 4.5GB and E:\Linux  35GB. I
> will need to move my CD RW and DVD ROM drives to other drive letters. My PC
> also has 512MB of RAM. I have no sight so I am not sure how to partition the
> drive with some sighted assistance. I am becoming interested in Gnopericus.
> I am not sure if I should install the RedHat 7.3 and some how upgrade the
> the Red hat Linux. I hate Windows, however, I have two groups that use
> Microsoft Office 2000: at some point I will need to look at installing a
> windows console program like Samba. I do abunch of HTML programming and
> demostrations. I am also looking into learning C,JAVA and Pearl programming
> languages. I started with a Commodore 64 in july 1984. I also have a DECTalk
> Ex press that works wwell with Speakup and I am thinking of eventially
> moveing to my Sound Blaster sound card and useing the DECTalk as a backup.
> My ISP is a cable service. I would like to hear some advice?
> 
> Angus MacKinnon
> Adaptive Computer Educator, ACE
> Email: MAILTO:flodabay@hotmail.com
> Web Page: http://members.shaw.ca/dabneyadfm
> Choroideremia Research Foundation Inc.
> http://www.choroideremia.org

Re: OS and HD format advice

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hi all,

Hmm. Is it possible to repartition an NTFS disk? I came to the
conclusion I'd have to remove Windows XP, reset partitions and install
it again; I opted for a second disk instead. I don't have half the space
Angus does, though.

I think Rafael is mistaken on one point: On my computer (Red Hat 8) it
recognizes the NTFS file system but cannot read files on it as far as I
can tell; at least not in kernel 2.4.20-8. Maybe some extra package...

If you know how to burn ISO images, you might do well to download Red
Hat 9. 7.x is getting pretty old, though going to 9 gives you only four
months(!) extra update support. You can learn how to burn these if you
have an advanced CD writing program and your hardware doesn't get in the
way (mine did; I had to temporarily uninstall my SCSI driver, for
example).

I don't have the complicated partition structure Rafael suggested, but
as far as I can tell there's no way to upgrade from one version of Red
Hat to another without using the complete CD set. There is an upgrade
option in the install program which I haven't used, but presumably you
need all three Cd's to use it. Does this eliminate the benefit of all
those partitions?

Red Hat 8 has Speakup as part of the base system so you can give Speakup
options to the install program; 7.x and 9 don't so you'll have to
either use the serial port (called ttyS0 instead of COM1 in Linux) or
build/download some boot diskettes - easier for speech than
Braille. You're lucky. I'm jealous! <Grin>

Hope this helps but doubt that it does,

Lee

Re: OS and HD format advice

[Rafael Skodlar]

It's possible to repartition NTFS disk without reinstalling the OS. You
need to defragment it first then use one or the other tool for that
purpose, Fips (OSS I believe) or Partition Magic. After that you can do
whatever you want. I do like your idea of a second disk drive. It's much
easier and safer to do it that way.

I checked /lib/modules/2.4.20-8/kernel/fs/ under RH9.0 and do not see
ntfs so the kernel seem not to have a default driver for it. That's
probably to prevent RH to be blamed for possible problems or loss of
data.

After installation you need to compile the kernel in order to interact
with NTFS.

On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 10:39:55AM -0400, Lee Maschmeyer wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Hmm. Is it possible to repartition an NTFS disk? I came to the
> conclusion I'd have to remove Windows XP, reset partitions and install
> it again; I opted for a second disk instead. I don't have half the space
> Angus does, though.
> 
> I think Rafael is mistaken on one point: On my computer (Red Hat 8) it
> recognizes the NTFS file system but cannot read files on it as far as I
> can tell; at least not in kernel 2.4.20-8. Maybe some extra package...
> 
> If you know how to burn ISO images, you might do well to download Red
> Hat 9. 7.x is getting pretty old, though going to 9 gives you only four
> months(!) extra update support. You can learn how to burn these if you
> have an advanced CD writing program and your hardware doesn't get in the
> way (mine did; I had to temporarily uninstall my SCSI driver, for
> example).
> 
> I don't have the complicated partition structure Rafael suggested, but
> as far as I can tell there's no way to upgrade from one version of Red
> Hat to another without using the complete CD set. There is an upgrade
> option in the install program which I haven't used, but presumably you
> need all three Cd's to use it. Does this eliminate the benefit of all
> those partitions?
> 
> Red Hat 8 has Speakup as part of the base system so you can give Speakup
> options to the install program; 7.x and 9 don't so you'll have to
> either use the serial port (called ttyS0 instead of COM1 in Linux) or
> build/download some boot diskettes - easier for speech than
> Braille. You're lucky. I'm jealous! <Grin>
> 
> Hope this helps but doubt that it does,
> 
> Lee

-- 
Rafael