Partioning and installing linux

Shane

Super Moderator
Staff member
Hey guys,

Can someone please tell me how i would create a partion for Ark Linux?

I need to know how much space it will need and what type of file system to use.
I will be using Partion magic 8 to partion my hard drive.

Please note: I have windows Xp home on the same drive and i DO NOT want to lose it at all.
I have never installed an operating system before so i would like to have a go:D
Thanks in advance:)
 
Well, first off you'll need to decide the size you want your resized windows partition to be. It's recommended you defrag before partitioning, so be sure to do that. Resize your windows partition, and leave the free space untouched. Then in cfdisk or fdisk, create a root partition and a swap. If you want to implement a partition scheme go right ahead. If you plan on just doing a basic partition scheme, partition about a gig (Or two times the amount of RAM you have installed) for your swap and the rest for root. Use ext3 for the root filesystem. Also if you're going to use windows boot manager be sure to mark the root partition bootable.
 
Ok this is a little confusing,

Can you help me through making the partion using Partion magic 8?

How much space should i give it? i was thinking 20Gb?
Should the new partion be Logical or Primary?
What file system type should i use?
 
Just resize the partition (i don't know how to do that).
Then let the Linux installer do they rest, there is an option to do with partitions during the installation. Atleast there was for Fedora, Debain and Ubuntu.

Hope that helps! Great news that your coming to linux!
Rowan.
 
You want to back up all your important data beforehand, in case something goes wrong during the repartitioning. Be patient, PM can take a long time to run, especially on larger drives, and there will be no indication of whether it is working or not.

Ark recommends 3GB of Hard drive space, plus whatever you allocate for the linux swap. You are going to create at least three partitions-- the Win, Ark root, and Linux Swap (for Ark).

If you have any plans for moving data between the OSes (it is safe to assume you will want to at one time or another), then it might be a good idea to create a small "scratchpad" partition of FAT32 type, as there isn't a reliable means of writing to NTFS from linux.

Remember that when it comes to Linux (of any flavor), Google and the man pages are your best friends.
 
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