Might get Linux

[Shadylookin]

perhaps I'm just an odd ball, but the packaging tools that come with the Linux distro have always been able to partition my ntsf drive flawlessly.

so far I've installed
Fedora 4, 5
ubuntu 6.10, 7
mandrake 10, 2006, 2007
solaris(unix not linux) 10
suse
gentoo

and all of them have had a GUI partition editor that worked fine

 

[Padma]

The ntfs partition tool included included in most distros for the past two or three years has been perfectly capable of handling Windows ntfs systems. You have to be sure your Windows system is reasonably defragged, and otherwise clean, but I never had a problem when I was dual-booting.

And, as Phlegmak has pointed out, there are plenty of good distros out there that don't require a new user to wade through the Command Line, if they don't want to. PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, Mepis, even Ubuntu.

 

[Pentium]

I've resized my NTFS partition with no problems on one computer, but I can't do the same on the other. The thing is, this one is older and has three users, two of which are using IE and doing other not nice things to it. It's so bad even Partition Magic can't resize it, so QtParted (another GUI for parted) is not to blame.

 

[FredLC]

Then you'll become comfortable with the Linux command line as well. Windows ones don't have integrated (and useful) help for each and every command

I am also new to Linux and I have a fresh installed Ubuntu 7.04, and I`m running into config issues that require command lines. I`d love if anyone could point out to me a list of Linux command lines...

As for the questions, I gotta say that I used Partition Magic 8 to create a new partition to my 160 GB HD (so I got a 30 GB drive to use and create the primary and the swap partitions).

I also have installed and reinstalled Ubuntu on it 3 times (as it is part of some test procedures I`m running), and none of it caused any trouble to my Windows XP instalation.

Regards .

 

[FredLC]

BTW, if you choose ubuntu, you'l learn that the support they give is amazingly fast. There were times I got answers from VERY knowledgeable people - the staff programmers actually - within 30 minutes of posting it.

Try here:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+questions

Regards .

 

[Padma]

Fred: Rute is a good place o start.

 

[FredLC]

Hey, padma, since you are familiar with linux, tell me this: How can I set my ubuntu to be able to read AND WRITE in the NTFS drives of my PC? today, I can open the text files I have in "my documents", but as "reading only", and all changes will be lost...

 

[Beam]

Hey, padma, since you are familiar with linux, tell me this: How can I set my ubuntu to be able to read AND WRITE in the NTFS drives of my PC? today, I can open the text files I have in "my documents", but as "reading only", and all changes will be lost...

Fred, although there seems to be a driver for writing on NTFS partitions from Linux it generally is highly recommended not to do so because of the possibility of file corruption errors etc. The problem here actually is the closed propriarity nature of NTFS which makes if hard to make a 100% fail safe driver for it.

If you want to exchange files between your Ubuntu and XP you best make a FAT32 partition for this purpose.

 

[Padma]

FWIW, there are supposed to be some tools to make this reasonably safe. NTFS-3G is reputed to be excellent, while Captive actually uses the Windows ntfs drivers to handle writing. (Although Captive appears to be no longer supported. I would try NTFS-3G.)

 

[Strider]

I personally use NTFS-3G and I haven't had any problems with it so far. According to my understanding, it does have some trouble writing/copying very large files. However, I don't use it for anything other than moving small folders or files back and forth. If that's your intent.. then NTFS-3G will work fine.

 

[Padma]

What Strider said.

(I don't have Windows on my machine, so I don't have to worry about reading/writing ntfs. )

 

[Macha]

Ok. So I've started to download Linux, I'm going to partition my 10GB drive into 3 partitions.
2GB FAT32 so Win And Linux can share files,
2GB (Linux's file system) for the Linux OS
6GB (Linux's file system) for other things using Linux.

 

[GVBN]

You will probably need a swap partition too

 

[Genocidicbunny]

I personally find it good practice to set the SWAP to 2x your RAM size as well, so depending on that, you might need to adjust accordingly.

 

[Macha]

Ok, so that's another 2GB partiton and 4GB. I tried installing it now but my PCLinuxOS download is corruppted and I'm near my AUP so I'll try to dload from a diff computer.

 

[Macha]

I have installed Linux and am using it now, is there anything I should know when using Linux.

 

[Padma]

Most importantly, Linux is not Windows.

 

[Macha]

btw, is there a reason in PCLinuxOS that everything in CFC appears in what seems to be a small, bold sans-serif font.

 

[Padma]

just your Firefox/Opera/Konqueror (whatever you are using) settings.

 

[GVBN]

Install Microsoft's TrueType fonts