Re: Thoughts Please.

In alt.linux on Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:09:27 +0100, Essential Touch <>
wrote:


Hi All

A little while ago I had a dual boot between winXP and FC5, but due to a
drive crash and lots of stuff going on IRL I've been on just windows since.

I'm now planning to set up the dual boot again. The existing drive is
300GB, one partition (NTFS) with XP on it, I've got a 250GB drive to add
that I want to split between FC7 and shared storage (probably NTFS as I
sometimes need files bigger than FAT32 will alow).

The question is how much space should I allow Linux to have? bearing in
mind that only the OS and the apps will be held there, all data files will
go on the shared part of the drive.

5GB should be plenty unless you want to install *everything*, in which
case you might need 10 or 12 GB for the whole of Debian, all 21 CDs of
it. You'll also want some swap space, the amount of which will depend
on your processor, RAM, and various inconclusive opinions based on
personal experience.*My* inconclusive opinion is that 1GB of swap is
more than anybody not running LinuxFromScratch or Gentoo on a RAM-poor
box could possibly need.

I'd suggest not doing any complicated partitioning, since this is for
home use, but you might want a small separate /home partition while
experimenting with different Linux distros, just so you don't lose
your custom KDE/Gnome/whatever settings between installs.

You *might* have some issues with writing to NTFS partitions under
Linux; at least, you might have to install some extra stuff to make it
work.

I would love to drop win totally, but until PhotoShop and Guitar Pro work
flawlessly under Linux/WINE, and I get a girlfriend that can be talked into
trying something other than the software she uses at work that just isn't
going to happen.

I like The GIMP. There are also tablature editors for Linux, but I
don't know if they're any good. Meanwhile, dual-booting's fine; no
need to be defensive about it. :-)

--
PJR :-)
.

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