Re: Debian Linux and W95 coexist?
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, MR HERB C HOWE wrote:
> -- [ From: Herb Howe * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] --
>
> Just received Debian Linux on the LSL CD which will be used on a shared
> Pentium which already has Windows 95 installed. The installation
> instructions look straight forward with one exception. It is not clear
> whether the installation routine is designed to overwrite what is
> already on the hard disk or if only the unused part of the disk will be
> used. Could someone please point me to a discussion of this and/or more
> basic information about disk partitioning? This must be an elementary
> question but is not apparent in the FAQs.
>
>
There is a great "book" written by Matt Welsh called "Linux Installation
and Getting Started" at <http://www.li.org/Resources/LDP/gs/gs.html>.
This is a great reference for Linux and has some detailed material on
partitioning hard disks for Linux installation. I'm sure there are other
references that discuss this also.
In a nutshell, you install Linux into its own partition. Often it is
advantageous to install it into several partitions. Assuming you want to
keep Win 95 on the computer and dual boot, then you must repartition the
Win95 partition (normally there is only 1 partition for Win95) and make it
smaller to create room for the Linux stuff. You use a program called
"FIPS", which is an MSDOS program that allows you to resize the Win95
partition non-destructively. At this point you have two partitions, one
for Win95 and another that is currently unused where you will install
Linux. Now you can start running the LSL Debian CD to install Debian. It
will lead you to the disk partitioning part and you would partition this
2nd partition that you created with FIPS for Linux.
The Linux partition can be just one partition, but many times making it
multiple partitions makes sense. I normally partition the Linux stuff
into 3 partitions, a root partition where "/" is mounted, a swap
partition, and another partition where "/usr" is mounted. At home where I
have Win95 and Debian, that hard disk has 4 partitions, one for Win95 and
3 for Linux as mentioned before.
If you aren't trying to keep Win95 and make it a Linux only machine, then
you can just install right over Win95 and repartition the disk from the
Debian installation, but this will eradicate Win95 from that disk.
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