Re: Partitions

Re: Partitions

[John Heim]

Are you saying you want to have a dual-boot machine and access your music
files via both Windows an linux? I've never done that. i have my music files
on a linux machine and access them on my Windows machine via samba.  I've
built literally hundreds of dual-boot machine but I've never tried sharing
files between   the 2  operating systems on the same hard disk.

I think what you want to do is install windows on the first partition and
set up a second partition for music files.
Linux can write to NTFS and FAT file systems but Windows can't write to
linux partitions.  There is a fairly new tool called ntfs-3g for linux to
allow you to read/write to NTFS partitions. You could also create your
second partition as a FAT32 partition which is supported in every linux
distro without add-on tools. You will need to install linux to a 3rd
partition after installing Windows.

I have never installed Vista but by default, XP will slurp up the entire
disk unless you tell it not to. You can use something like grml to create
the partitions ahead of time. With a 100 Gb hard drive, i would create 3
primary partitions, 10 GB NTFS for Windows, 80 Gb FAT for music, and then
leave the remaining 10 Gb for linux. I'd let the linux installer create the
logical partitions for me on the 3rd primary partition.

Of course, I may have misread your intentions.  None of this is applicable
if you're not creating a dual-boot system. How do you plan on installing
Windows? Sighted assistance I'm guessing.   If you have sighted assistance,
you might not have to create the partitions ahead of time with grml. I'm not
that familiar  with the Windows installer to know if you can partition the
HD with it.  When I install Windows, I use an open source system from
http://unattended.sourceforge.net and i never run the actual Windows
installer myself.

----- Original Message ----- 

From: "Scott Ford" <scotte.ford@gmail.com>
To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'"
<speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 5:24 PM
Subject: Partitions?


> Hi yall,
> I am getting ready to install a distribution of Linux on my new
> computer.  This what I have, a core 2 processor, 2G ram, 100G hd.  I would
> like to have the following partitions I think!  A windows, music, storage,
> Linux swap 4G, root, usr, home partitions?  What do you guys think?  How
> much space would you guys alacate to each?  Thank you
> Scott
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: Partitions

[Gregory Nowak]

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On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 03:19:34PM -0500, John Heim wrote:
> If you have sighted assistance,
> you might not have to create the partitions ahead of time with grml. I'm not
> that familiar  with the Windows installer to know if you can partition the
> HD with it.

It does let you create a ntfs, or fat32 partition for windows
itself. I don't know if it lets you create partitions of other types,
though I doubt it does.

  When I install Windows, I use an open source system from
> http://unattended.sourceforge.net and i never run the actual Windows
> installer myself.

Just wondering, have you tried that with vista yet? Did it work,
leaving you with a finished install of vista?

There is of course a third option, doing an unattended install by
using winnt.sif for xp, and autounattend.xml for vista. If installing
xp, and going the winnt.sif route, you'll need to create the windows
partition ahead of time, and format it as fat32, (you can then tell
the installer via winnt.sif syntax if it should leave that partition
as fat32, or convert it to ntfs for you).

If installing xp via winnt.sif, you'll want to be sure you get your
syntax regarding partitions exactly right, else it will happily do
whatever it thinks is best, which may not be what you want. If you're
installing everything from scratch, I would suggest doing xp first, if
you are installing xp, and using winnt.sif to do so. That way, if the
final result isn't what you want, you didn't lose or screw up anything
else, and you can simply modify winnt.sif, and reinstall xp again,
until you get it right.

If you're using vista, I can't help you there. I can tell you though,
that from what I've seen of the WAIK documentation, vista seems to
have the ability to create and format its own partition, provided you
have a properly configured autounattend.xml file, so you shouldn't
need to
create a partition manually for vista ahead of time. However, since I
haven't actually done an install of vista, I do stand to be corrected
here.

Greg


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Re: Partitions

[John Heim]

From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
> It does let you create a ntfs, or fat32 partition for windows
> itself. I don't know if it lets you create partitions of other types,
> though I doubt it does.

Oh, I'm pretty sure it won't let you create a linux partition. I'd have 
heard if it did. But it does let you partition your drive into C:, D:, E: 
etc? I would think it would almost have to. But you never know.

>
>  When I install Windows, I use an open source system from
>> http://unattended.sourceforge.net and i never run the actual Windows
>> installer myself.
>
> Just wondering, have you tried that with vista yet? Did it work,
> leaving you with a finished install of vista?

No, I don't own a Vista license.  But I am about as sure as I can be that it 
doesn't work based on what I read on the email list for the unattended 
project itself.