dual booting - accessible partition resizers and some other questions

[Daniel Dalton]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Willem van der Walt wrote:

> On Wed, 19 Mar 2008, Daniel Dalton wrote:
>> Is it just resizing the windows partition, adding a swap partition (in my case
>> 2 gb) and adding a partition for linux?
>> Does anything have to be done for grub?
>> Or am I missing something?
> Yes, but a good installer would allow you to create the swap and linux
> partitions during the install.
> Resize your windows partition using a program called ntfsresize from
> linux.
> You boot with whatever talking Linux you have like the blind eye linux by
> I think John Heim, or oralux or Ubuntu Feisti.
> There is a staticly linked ntfsresize program somewhere out there, google
> for it.
> Put that on a memory stick or floppy, once booted into lets say speakup
> from a CD,
> mount the stick or floppy, read the manual for ntfsresize and away you go.

Thanks, I'll check it out.
So I could do that from my ubuntu 7.04 livecd?

>
>> Do I need to run a disk defrag or something?
> yes, to make sure you have your blank space at the end of the win
> partition.

So that is done before or after the resizing?
And do I run defrag in linux or windows?
If its in linux, what tool can do this?

> >
>> Once resizing is done then how do I tell linux to install to its own new
>> partition and make a swap and leave windows alone?
> Run the linux installer.  I have never worked with a Linux installer that
> distroys things without asking you.
> What most does, is to tell you about the empty space on the disk and then
> suggest that it will install itself there.

Good!
So do I select manually do the partitions?
Or automatically handle them?
(in the installer)

> During the install, grub is also installed and most installers will ask
> you if you want to have your windos as a boot option.
> These days the installer does most things for you.

good.

>>
>> I know this is a hard question to answer... :-)
> Its up to you, but Ubuntu is easier for accessibility.

Is its repo as big as debian's?

> You might afterwards want to change your /boot/grub/grub.lst file to
> change the timeout setting, but after the install you would normally get a
> grub menu from where you can press enter for linux and down-arrow then
> enter for Windows.

Good. Do you mean menu.lst?
Or is that for something else?

> The timeout is normally very short before the machine starts booting into
> Linux, so that is likely going to be your first boot after install.

Good.

> HTH, Willem

Thanks for all this great info! I really appreciate your help.

Thanks,

-- 
Daniel Dalton

http://members.iinet.net.au/~ddalton/
d.dalton at iinet.net.au