On Sat, 2005-02-19 at 15:24 -0800, William Hoblitzell wrote: --snip-- > I am only using El Diablo Winblows as a basis from which to install, > so please don't judge me too harshly for that. I currently have a > separate partition(s) setup for Linux in coordination with the red hat > suggestion for a dual booting system (keeping Windows for awhile as a > net to catch me after I blow up Linux somehow). There's no shame in that. Or rather, there's not TOO MUCH shame in that. A lot of people keep around a Windows partition indefinitely for various reasons. (Games tend to be a big one... and with specs like the ones you've described for your box, you sound like a gamer. :) ) What really matters is where your heart is. (Preferably in the upper left of your chest... ;) ) More on that later. > I left 2,047MB for the swap drive, 150mb for the boot and around 5000 > mb for the root. I downloaded the file from here, the minimal boot CD > for a Network install of debian, linked directly off the site: > http://people.debian.org/~dwhedon/boot-floppies/bf2.4-3.0.23-mini.iso As Kent said, people do tend to be religious about their partitioning schemes. Everyone tends to find what works best for them after a little while. I definitely agree with Ron's suggestion to keep your /home in a separate partition. I also usually put /etc in a separate (and quite small) partition as well. If/when my system blows up (bad luck with hard drives for years now), I just back up those two partitions, do a dpkg --get-selections followed by dpkg --set-selections on a brand new disk, and I can't even tell that my system ever went down. (If the talk of dpkg above sounds foreign for now, don't worry about it. Just remember that there IS a solution if you ever need it.) > The problem comes when I use this CD and attempt to install. I press > enter, then the system locks up shortly after. It always freezes at > the same spot, with the final line before the big kaboosh being: > > "ide0 at 0x1F0-0x1F7, 0x3g6 on irq14" As everyone else has mentioned, this is likely due to the installer you're using and not necessarily your hardware. Definitely try the Sarge installer. > The partitions I created for Linux's later usage were all after the > Windows partition, which might be a separate issue later on and is > actually the basis for my second question: Can I put them after the > Windows partition and still have it install(perhaps this has > caused/linked to the problem of the freezing)? Can I even keep the > Windows partition before I install Linux? Yup. You can keep as many partitions on your system as you want, with as many OS's as you want with no problems. At least as far as Linux goes. Microsoft OS's are notorious for chewing up your boot records and trampling all over non-Windows partitions. > Thanks all for your time and may god have mercy upon my soul for > having used and purchased Windows 3.1,95,98,ME and XP in the first > place. Having confessed your sins and accepted Linux as your OS and savior, I hereby proclaim you absolved of your past OS transgressions. Though the real test will come about a month or two after you've installed Linux. That's the point at which most people who's hearts aren't in the right place (see above) tend to fall back onto the crutch of that Windows partition more and more on a daily basis, and eventually just give up on Linux altogether. But as I and most other people on this list can tell you, when you make it past that point you'll wonder how you ever lived with computers until now. Best of luck to you! :) -- Alex Malinovich Support Free Software, delete your Windows partition TODAY! Encrypted mail preferred. You can get my public key from any of the pgp.net keyservers. Key ID: A6D24837
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