Partition / Dual Boot Advice.

[joechimp]

Have an older computer that I want to set up to dual boot PCLINUXOS 2010 and Windows XP SP3.

1.6 GHZ PROC
1.25GB RAM
40 GB Hard Drive (actually 37 and change)

This is what this laptop has and I want to utilize just that hardware and not buy a bigger hard drive.

The question I have is how to split up that small hard drive?
 I had a complicated scenario, but I am writing this to get some streamlined ideas.

Should I install PCLINUXOS first or doesn't it matter. I believe I read that you should do that but could not find the thread.

I want to install full OFFICE on the windows partition and probably a couple other things. Open Office on the linux side. Yes I know I could just use Open Office but I would like to experiment with this and see how much I can squeeze in and get it all to play together nicely.

Any particular partitioning/formatting hardware better for this purpose?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[CaptainSarcastic]

You want to install Windows first, then install PCLOS - that will make your life much easier.

As to the size of the partitions, some of that depends on which side you intend to be using most often, and will have the most applications and such installed.  That's not a very big drive, but an even split would probably work fairly well.

Install Windows on a partition using half the drive, then install PCLOS and let it use the unformatted space.  Should be quick, easy, and painless.

[menotu]

Install PCLinuxOS second - it will pick up XP and configure it in grub for you.

I would do all the partition setup/formatting prior to the installs. GParted LiveCD would do the partitioning for you.

I guess a reasonable split would be:

10Gb for XP
22Gb for PCLinuxOS (10Gb for Root - 10Gb for /home and 2Gb swap)
5Gb remaining as a data partition possibly setup as NTFS?

Of course, this is only a guestimate - tweak to suit. (Office will take up a fair bit up on both systems)

[joechimp]

You want to install Windows first, then install PCLOS - that will make your life much easier.

As to the size of the partitions, some of that depends on which side you intend to be using most often, and will have the most applications and such installed.  That's not a very big drive, but an even split would probably work fairly well.

Install Windows on a partition using half the drive, then install PCLOS and let it use the unformatted space.  Should be quick, easy, and painless.

Thank you for the reply. That was one scenario I had in mind. Several that were more complicated.  Good to know about installing windows first. I thought I had just read the opposite the other day. I do believe thought it was specific to Windows 7.

[joechimp]

Install PCLinuxOS second - it will pick up XP and configure it in grub for you.

I would do all the partition setup/formatting prior to the installs. GParted LiveCD would do the partitioning for you.

I guess a reasonable split would be:

10Gb for XP
22Gb for PCLinuxOS (10Gb for Root - 10Gb for /home and 2Gb swap)
5Gb remaining as a data partition possibly setup as NTFS?

Of course, this is only a guestimate - tweak to suit. (Office will take up a fair bit up on both systems)

Thank you as well menotu for your input.

That's 2 for windows first. Got it.

I just burnt the new parted magic to disk. That has the latest gparted on it so I am good with that.

It's funny that you have one of my other scenarios. I was going to type out all of my ideas but I thought it better to get those with more knowledge advice. I had a little less allotted for swap...../......and .../home but I think the size you suggested would be better.

The 5GB should be plenty for storage. If I need more I can always use an external source.
Setting  up the partitioning/formatting before hand is good advice. I may not have done that but I can see where it will be useful.

Thanks again for the help.

[menotu]

Good luck my friend.

[joechimp]

Much appreciated.

[rick0612]

Hi,

As a suggestion: Install Win XP on the whole drive. Install all the Windows programs you want then install PCLOS. Leave a little room on the Win XP partition for data and give the rest to PCLOS. PCLOS's install program will resize the Win XP partition for you.

Good luck.

[joechimp]

Another good suggestion. Thank you.

[uncleV]

Resizing of Win would be time consuming and risky.
If after weeks or month something goes wrong on XP you will never be sure it is not because of some bit error while resizing the whole OS. I.e you'll never be sure on any fault in XP is it repairable at all. I wouldn't go this way.

If you plan to have XP only for programs/games that you won't run on Linux I'd suggest giving slightly more space to Linux and slightly less to XP.

[CaptainSarcastic]

One other thing to keep in mind - from the Linux side you will be able to access the Windows partition, but not the other way around.  Anything you want accessible from both sides (such as documents, media files, and so on) would be best put in a shared folder on the Windows partition.  Just another thought about how to allocate space on the drive - if you want to share a lot of material between the two operating systems then a decent size on the Windows partition would be helpful.

[joechimp]

Thanks uncleV and CaptainSarcastic. Good advice.

I had planned to make the Shared space a little bigger for the exact reason you mentioned. I know that I can access anything on there from the Linux end.

Thanks again.

[uncleV]

Now do it!

[joechimp]

Now do it!

YES SIR !