Some questions for HD install...

[mike19]

Hi, I tried Knoppix and got it working, everything was fine, there were just a few things I would change, but that's not the point of this post :P

I'd like to try a HD install of this spiffy OS. I think I have enough disk space to pull it off, but having read a few of the guides it seems like Knoppix needs its own partition. At this point I have my 80GB hard drive partitioned as follows:

C: drive - contains windows XP, essential programs, has 9.95 GB left of 18.5 GB
E: drive - contains downloads, music, backups of old PC, 3.53 gb of 18.5 GB left
F: drive - contains my games :D, has 5.16 GB of 18.5 GB left
G: drive - contains images, movies, some buisiness programs. has 1.70 GB left of 18.8

BTW, all drives are NTFS, but this should not be a problem, since I've got Knoppix 3.4 with capture-ntfs.

So I really still have about 20 GB of unused space. Is there any way I can use some of my unused space to install Knoppix/Debian on? If possible, I don't want to lose the data on any of my discs, except maybe games which can be easily reinstalled. I was thinking about backing up the important stuff on my games drive onto a seperate drive(shouldn't take much space, just savegames and stuff), deleting the F: partition, and creating a new Knoppix partition.

Most of my games should work fine under Linux, my favorites are UT2K4, Neverwinter Nights, which run natively under Linux, and Steam, which supposedly runs fine under WineX/Cedego. All I would really have to worry about is getting my video card to work properly, but that's a different thread :P Also, I can still boot to Windows XP to play some games who don't like Linux, right?

Finally, if anyone has any REALLY basic FAQs or documents on Linux/Debian/Knoppix, it would be really useful, most of the docs I'm reading assume that you understand the command line fairly well, and I'm still trying to catch on to what all these crazy commands they are using really do :P

So advice as to how I should proceed with this would be very much appreciated.

[Jez]

Here's a nice long post for ya :P

First though, let me tell you that I can't take any responsibility for anything in this post being utterly wrong. Don't take my word for anything. That said, this worked fine for me:

The backing up is a very important step. Don't miss it out under any circumstances. The worst thing that can happen is that you lose everything on your disk, so back up absolutely everything you think you might miss. Gamesaves, downloads, work, etc. Time spent backing up is definitely well spent. You never know what horrible things could go wrong.

Don't let that put you off though 8).

I'm new to this myself, but I can tell you a couple of things. You're not really going to need to know the command line well in order to get your disk sorted. There's a neat little program included with Knoppix called QTParted, which is allows you to mess with your partitions without losing any data (hopefully). If you want you can fiddle around with it a bit. Nothing will actually be changed unless you go to the menu and press 'Commit'. So if you just play around with it a bit without confirming your changes, that should let you get used to the interface.

The problem with your situation is that although you have enough free space, the free space isn't all in one big chunk. It's dotted around throughout the drive. The other problem is that just because you have 9.95GB left out of 18.5GB, on C:, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to use all that free space. I found this out myself recently. I have a 120GB disk, and I had a Windows partition taking up the whole disk. Only 50GB was actually in use, yet it seemed that the smallest size I could resize the partition to in QTParted was not 50GB but 100GB. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I wouldn't be surprised if defragging beforehand helps a bit (which I DID do, but perhaps not enough :P Heheh).

Anyway, what you'll need to do in QT Parted is try and get your free space into one big chunk, if possible. If you can't do that, hopefully you'll have at least one chunk of free space of at least 5GB - that's enough to install Linux on. The main partition I would suggest you create in ext3 format. Worked for me.

Depending on the amount of RAM you've got, you may also want to create a swap partition. I didn't actually do this but my limited understanding is that you simply create a partition of somewhere around 500MB is QTParted, with the format 'Linux Swap'. I think this is automatically detected during the install. I'd get somebody else to confirm this first though.

Once you've made your changes and hit 'Commit' in QTParted, hopefully you'll be told the changes were made successfully. Then you're ready to install. This next bit is vital: Make ultra ultra ultra certain that you remember the name of the ext3 partition you intend to install Linux on. If you accidentally tell the installer to install onto the wrong partition, then you're a bit screwed ;).

By this stage you should be ready to go. Make sure you have a floppy disk handy, since you'll be needing it to create a boot disk during the install process. Since you say you're using Knoppix 3.4, just open up Konsole and type the following:

sudo knoppix-installer

(Just for your information, if you're not already aware, 'sudo' is a command that lets you run a command as root. It stands for 'super user do'. A user has to be listed in a file called sudoers for this to work. Fortunately, 'knoppix', the default user who you're logged in as, is on the sudoers list. Once you install though, you'll have your own account, plus the root acount. Your personal account won't be on the sudoers list by default. However, you can still run commands as root by using the command 'su', then typing the root password when prompted.)

Anyway, back to business. The knoppix-installer command should take you into the installation program. The first option in the list of options is to configure the installation. Chances are you'll be wanting a Debian-style install (i.e. a proper install), but you might want to give that a thought. You hit space bar to select the option you want. Don't assume that something is selected just because it's highlighted when you hit next. I nearly got the wrong installation by making that mistake. You can tell if the right option is selected because the brackets next to it will have a dot in between them.

Most of the other options are very straightforward. You'll be asked to select the partition to install to. You may find that only the ext3 partition is shown in the list. Either way, make sure you select the right partition. Again, you need to hit space to select it. Don't just highlight it and press next without pressing space.

Other things you'll need to do are create a user account for yourself, and set a password for it. Also you'll need to set a password for the root account.

The only other complicated option is when it asks you where you want it to put LILO. In case you're not aware, LILO is responsible for booting Linux, basically. I selected MBR here, since that's what I wanted. However, I'm actually not entirely sure what the other option does. If you want to be presented with a screen when you switch on your computer, asking you which partition to boot from, then pick MBR. Again, this worked fine for me.

Once you've set everything up, you're ready to start the installation. With any luck it'll all work fine. When it tells you it's done, reboot.

You'll now hopefully see the LILO screen I mentioned. Hopefully one or another of the Linux options will work for you. I have to pick Linux 2.6 because of my SATA hard disk, but I don't know about you.

Only problem I had after this with getting it to boot was that it was hanging for no apparent reason during the boot process. However, I found that once I unplugged my bluetooth adapter things worked absolutely fine.

Once you're dumped at the login screen, you can let off a sigh of relief and give yourself a pat on the back :).

The only other challenge is seeing if Windows still works afterwards :P. For me it works fine. Only thing you might experience is Windows loading a little program to check the hard disk, when you first boot into Windows after messing with the partitions. As long as it doesn't detect anything wrong (it didn't for me), this requires no interaction on your part. Just let it do its thing.

And that's it, I think. After the isntall, the next step is getting all your hardware working, if it isn't already. This is where I'm stuck at the moment - trying to get my sound and wifi card sorted out.

If you had to use the 'alsa' cheatcode when booting from the Knoppix cd, in order to get sound, then supposedly using the command '/etc/init.d/alsa-autoconfig' as root, should set alsa up again after the install... This hasn't worked for me though, even though it gives me no errors.

Anyway, I'm really rambling here, and I don't know if I've even specifically answered your questions.


BTW, all drives are NTFS, but this should not be a problem, since I've got Knoppix 3.4 with capture-ntfs

Your current partitions are formatted in NTFS, but when you create a partition for Linux, you should a format such as ext3. Different partitions can have different formats, you see :).


Also, I can still boot to Windows XP to play some games who don't like Linux, right?

Yes, if all goes well. Your current Windows partition should show up in the LILO screen when you boot, alongside Linux.

I hope this post has helped you, and isn't too long and all-over-the-place :). Good luck!

[mike19]

Wow, thank you so much for typing that out... This is so helpful it isn't even funny. Thanks for your time! Now to start backups :(

[mike19]

Ok, like you said, in the Qtparted utility my drives are showing up as having little to no space left. I've defragmented my drives with the Windows utility, but I'm going to do it again with a different utility, I'll post again if this helps. If not, I guess I'll have to use something else like ntfsresize to play with the partitions, and then I'll try Qtparted again. If anyone could think of a solution to this resizing problem, I'd be grateful :D

Also, do I have to backup everything on the entire hard-disk, or just the partitions that I will be resizing? This is very important, as my backup resources are limited.

[EDIT: I have discovered that ntfs-resize does indeed acknowledge that I have more space free than Qtparted lets on. In fact, it is showing that I have more space than windows explorer told me! Interesting. A no-action test of resizing the partition was successful, but I'm not quite ready to do this yet, as I have no way of backing up all my files... it might just be easier to buy another small hard drive :(]