Re: Debian on a Dell 4150?

[Preben Randhol <randhol@pvv.org>]

Spiros Kapetanakis <spiros@cs.york.ac.uk> wrote on 05/09/2002 (20:34) :
> 
> Initially, I have the following questions:
> 
> 1. How do I resize the other operating system's partition (it's the XP
> variety) without having to reinstall? The only reason why I need to do
> this instead of just wiping out completely is so because I don't really
> want to fiddle with the other OS, I wouldn't know where to start. When I
> get everything working under Linux, I'm going to wipe the other OS anyway.

Hmm I guess you need somthing like Partition Magic. I think there is a
GNU tool too, but I have forgotten the name. 

Check: http://pic.its.tudelft.nl/inspiron/

> 2. When the installation asks me to make a boot floppy, I _KNOW_ that
> I should do it. But, the DVD will be in the drive at the time so I
> won't have a floppy.  How do I go round this problem?

Can you take out the DVD driver and insert the floppy while the machine is on?

If not make Linux bootable and when you reboot the system do a :

   mkboot

> 3. I typically have different partitions for /, /boot, /usr,
> /usr/local, /home, /tmp and /var. Should I do this with my laptop or
> should I stick with one big partition and a swap partition? Is it
> advisable to have multiple partitions on a laptop?

There is no difference between laptops and desktop, but I guess you are
not going to use the laptop as a server? I never bother with making
special partitions for /boot /usr /tmp /var etc... except /home. You
must make a partition for /home as you then seperate your files from the
system. This makes it easier to backup or to avoid problems in case you
should need to reinstall later. On a server you should have a partition
for /var and /tmp so that you don't risk running out of disc space on /,
but for a non server this is not a problem. Why do you have a /boot
partition? Too many partitions makes a mess of things I think.

> 4. Is there anyone out there that has installed Debian on an Inspiron
> 4150? What did you do about this hibernate partition that I hear
> people talking about?

Check out:
   http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html

I don't find anything on 4150, but there is a lot on 4100. I guess they
are quite similar so you can find and apply information about 4100 on
4150.

-- 
Preben Randhol
                                             "Twra, oxi avrio"