On Tue, 31 May 2005, R. Kesler wrote:
I'm a new Linux user and just downloaded Fedora Core 3. I was planning on running a dual-boot configuration with WinXP Home Edition. My computer has a C: partition (72GB) and a D: partition (4.66GB). It is a Compaq and the D: partition is used as a system recovery partition. I am more than experienced in a Microsoft environment and was wondering if my current configuration would cause any problems when I begin to install Fedora.
What I really want to know is if I should create a 10GB partition in DOS then install Fedora and direct the installer to use the 10GB partition or should I let the Fedora installer create my partitions? I know I will need a /root partition and a Linux swap partition. Any help would be appreciated as I am new to Linux.
If you have unallocated space on your drive, the FC installer can partition it for you. If your drives are full of Win partitions, you'll need a program like PartitionMagic or parted (kparted/qparted) to resize the Win partitions and make room for Linux.
I believe you'll need for the partition containing /boot to be primary, so either / will have to be primary or you will need aabout 100M of primary space for /boot. It's handy to have /home (and maybe /usr/local if you install lots of non-RPM software) on their own partitions because it will make upgrading easier later.
Also, anyone used Fedora with VMware? I see that Red Hat 7.0-9.0 is compatible with VMware, as well as RHEL AS/ES/WS 4.0 (32-bit), RHEL AS/ES/WS 2.1, 3.0, and RHEL Advanced Server 2.1.
I'm running VMware 5 on an FC3 host with no problem. I dual-boot with WinXP Pro (site-licensed version--see below) and boot the WinXP installation natively and in VMware. It's a bit complicated to set up, but it works smoothly after that, with a couple of exceptions:
(1) I really hosed WinXP once after suspending it in VMWare and then forgetting and booting natively. Don't make that mistake!
(2) I don't have this problem with site-licensed XP Pro, but you will: When you boot in VMware, your hardware profile changes and WinXP will want to re-register with Microsoft. When you boot back in to WinXP native, your hardware profile changes and WinXP will want to re-register with Microsoft. It doesn't take too many of those before Microsoft thinks you are doing something nefarious and refuses to register your WinXP.
I don't know much about going the other way (WinXP host, dual-boot FC3 guest) if that's what you were thinking about. Take a look at the VMware Knowledge Base and Newsgroups.
Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Richard
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
-- Matthew Saltzman
Clemson University Math Sciences mjs AT clemson DOT edu http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs
