Re: First attempt
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, KTB wrote:
> #1. Ok I'm not getting very far. First of all I want to make sure I am
> using the right disk. I have Debian 2.0 official, both the Binary and
> Source disks say the same thing when I boot them up and try to install
> from cdrom. Can you use either, or?
I'm fairly new myself, so don't take my responses as gospel. I'm not sure
if you can use the Source CD for an initial install; I think you want to
use the Binary.
> I went through the steps and
> everything seemed to go ok until I tried to partion the drive. I
> followed the instructions in the book. I select [New] and [Primary]
> then I can't change the size of the partion, it lets me make a 6149.89
> MB partion but then can't go on to make a swap partion. The 6149.89 MB
> is my whole HD so maybe that is why I can't make another. At any rate I
> noticed the numbers lock isn't on and the numbers just don't work. I
> entered [US] when choosing a keyboard.
I haven't yet figured out how to get the numlock to default "On" (that's
low priority for now). You can us the numbers above the qwerty keyboard,
or just press the NumLock key to turn on numlock.
I don't think I'd use one partition for the system, although the system
doesn't really care. It's just that later you might find it more useful if
you've "modularized" the system some. I'd probably allocate 200MB for the
root, maybe 300 if you want to be generous. Then maybe 64 or 128MB for the
swap (you can't use more than 128MB for a single swap partition, I
believe, and I think 64 would be more than adequate). The rest of the
drive I'd probably evenly divide into partitions for /usr, /tmp, /var, and
/home. Others would probably say this is overkill.
If you have [an] existing partition[s], you may need to delete them first
to make room for the scheme mentioned above (or whatever scheme you decide
on). Be aware that partitioning will clean your drive of any existing
data.
Then when you create a new partition, don't let it use the entire space.
One of the questions that cfdisk (or fdisk) asks is how big you want the
partition (it automatically puts in 6149.89M for you, assuming it should
use all the available space. Erase this and type in the size you want
(such as 200M). I believe you can specify the size in megabytes by typing
a number followed by M, but I'm not sure of the exact syntax. I think the
on-screen hints will indicate how to do that.
Once you've got the partitions created, you'll need to choose the Write
option to actually write the changes to disk.
> #2. While I'm at it. I have a blank 6.4 gigabyte 2nd IDE HD that I am
> trying to install Debian on. Most of the literature I have read talks
> about partioning in limited space. I was thinking I could make the 1st
> partion (root) 1000 MB and the swap 100 MB, I have 64 MB Ram. Does this
> sound reasonable? Will that make the rest of the HD dead space?
> Thanks,
> Kent
>
I'm not sure what you're referring to, but again, a root partition of
1000MB seems awfully large.
--
Kent West
kent.west@infotech.acu.edu
KC5ENO - Amateur Radio: When all else fails.
Linux - Finally! A real OS for the Intel PC!
"Life is an ongoing classroom." - Capt. James T. Kirk, "Dreadnought"
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