n00b needs advice on HD install

[DJs Red]

I'm a total newbie when it comes to linux. I finally tried it less than two weeks ago and so far, I'm LOVING knoppix. I'm thinking that after I become more familiar with linux in general and knoppix specifically, I want to redo my box so I can dual boot knoppix from the HD as well as WinXPPro (gotta play my games ;)). I have two hard drives, a 120 gig Western Digital SE and an older 20 gig Maxtor. I was wondering if I could put Knoppix on the Maxtor and WinXP on the Western Digital. I don't think I'd need a lot of room for the knoppix install, but I imagine you guys would know better than me. Do you linux gurus think this is a good or even possible config to run on? I know the Knoppix drive would need to be FAT32, but what about the WinXP drive? Can I use NTFS? Should I use NTFS?

Slightly related to this, I've also recently discovered the magic that is .ogg files for music. I'm thinking I want to transfer my CD collection to my 120 gig using this format (I was actually just about to do this with mp3 VBR). Is this something that can be done under knoppix, or would I be better off using WinXP?

Thank you for any help you can provide. I must say, just browsing through these forums, I've picked up quite a bit of usefull info!

[r3writ3r]

get VMware Workstation installl it and install knoppix , suse, mandrake and red hat on it and run them all at the same time :D + winnt win2000, win95 win98 all from the confort of your own xppro fckgw......

r3writ3r@yahoo.com


being a newbee its so great, we all start there

[RockMumbles]

If you want to do a real hd install, the 20GB hd will have to be ext2, ext3, reiser, etc. a supported linux filesystem, not fat32. You may want to partition the 20 GB drive into a 6 to 8 GB linux partition for your knoppix os and other linux specific stuff, and leave the rest as a fat32 shared drive, accessible from both xp and linux.

As far as I know, ntfs support is only reliable for read-only, I've read that if you write to an xp system partition while the os is NOT running, it won't boot anymore (I don't know this for cretain as I've never really used xp, or win2k).

Linux does ogg

HTH

~rock

[DJs Red]

Thanks for your replies, they increase my slowly expanding knowledge on linux.

When chosing a linux file system for my hd linux install, is there any advantage to ext2 vs ext3, vs some other linux system? I made a persistant home dir on a memory stick to use until I have time to do the full install, and I noticed it formatted the memory stick to ext2. Is this what knoppix prefers? Is there something "better"?

I'm thinking that I might make the WinXP drive a FAT32 so that I could store my CD collection on that and encode from both WinXP and Knoppix. Or, I could use the 120 gig for the Knoppix install and have a FAT32 share on the 20 gig, which I could do a 15/5 split on for WInXP with NTFS. XP with all my crap installed right now only takes about 11 gigs or so. I don't really anticipate getting 4 gigs of Windows software for quite some time.

If anyone has any recomendations or comments on my setup, I'd love to hear them. Thanks again for the help that's been provided, I've found it useful.

[RockMumbles]

ext2 is the "standard" linux filesystem, ext3 is a "updated" filesystem still ext2 compatible but with journaling, which allows recovering with bad shutdown etc.

If you value your xp install I would recommend that you do not write to that partition. If you have to, resize your os partition using an xp compatible tool and make a vfat (fat32) partition that is used for common storage, usable in both linux and xp. Note: linux can read from your ntfs partition OK.

HTH

~rock

[aay]

When chosing a linux file system for my hd linux install, is there any advantage to ext2 vs ext3, vs some other linux system?

Deffinitely use ext3 or reiserfs. You want to use a journeled file system. I think reiser may be a bit faster. I've heard some reliablity concerns about reiserfs, but i've never encountered them.

[m_yates]

NTFS is a better file system for Windows. You would be better off creating an NTFS partition for windows XP and a separate FAT32 partition. Windows would see the FAT32 partition and read/write to it (as drive D: or something like that). Linux can also read/write to the FAT32 partition, so you can share your misic files, etc. Linux will read NTFS data, but will cause major problems if you try to write to the NTFS partition. I recommend Acronis Partition Expert: http://www.acronis.com/products/partitionexpert/ You can create a bootable CD to use for partitioning.

Also, if you dual boot, remember that linux will be handling the booting through the linux loader (LILO) program. Make sure that you boot first to the drive that has Linux on it. Either move the 20 GB drive to IDE primary (hda), or set the BIOS to boot first from the IDE secondary drive. LILO can handle dual boot without any problems. I dual boot with WinXP and Linux(Knoppix) using a single drive.