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March 15th, 2008 08:00
HOW DO I INSTALL LINUX
HELLO,I RECENTLY PURCHASED DELL XPSM1530,WHICH COMES PRELOADED WITH VISTA.MY HARD DRIVE IS 136GB FOR C DRIVE AND 10GB FOR RECOVERY.HOW DO I INSTALL LINUX WITHOUT DISTURBING MY VISTA AND RECOVERY.
ultra-fearless
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Posted March 15th, 2008 21:00
Depending on what flavor of Vista you Have you may be Able to use the OS to Shrink the Partition Vista is in and then use the Freed up Space to Create a New Partition to install Linux in.Message Edited by Ultra-Fearless on 03-15-2008 02:54 PMsorry Ultra-Fearless but how could be possible to ad a new partition if dell use 4 logical partitions and it's seems that 4 is the maximum amount possible ?
When I tried to shrink a partition to add a new one vista didn't create anything , reading around the web I discovered that 4 is the maximum amount of logical partitions .... so there are 2 options :
delete 1 or more Dell partition (recovery part for example)
or install Linux on external drive......
I'm a little bit disappointed about Dell partitioning.
@Petengy wrote:
sorry Ultra-Fearless but how could be possible to ad a new partition if dell use 4 logical partitions and it's seems that 4 is the maximum amount possible ?
I'm a little bit disappointed about Dell partitioning.
Nope!A PC can have at most 4 primary partitions. At most 1 of the 4 partitions can be an extended partition. An extended partition is basically a container, which can hold an unlimited amount of logical partitions. Technically speaking an extended partition creates a chain of partitions, but this doesn't matter here at all.Conclusion No. 1: You can have as many partitions as you prefer. Until the harddrive is full. Just make sure that all new paritions you create are inside of the extended partition - otherwise you get an error by the partitioning tool.Here's the catch:Windows XP/Vista Master Boot Record (MBR) can only boot exactly one primary partition.Conclusion No. 2: If you use Windows XP/Vista MBR, make sure your OS resides on a primary partition (since the extended partition takes one slot, you have in general at most 3 of the primary ones). And the Windows XP/Vista partition is the only active primary partition.If you install Linux, you will replace the XP/Vista MBR with GRUB. At least that's the most common pattern. GRUB is NOT limited to booting from primary partitions. It can boot from any logical partition.Conclusion No. 3: If you use GRUB MBR, you can load any OS from any partition (be it a primary or a logical one).That's not pure theoretical stuff, I'm using it this way. You don't necessarily need to use GRUB to boot from logical paritions, but for most peoples it's the easiest way to accomplish that.Conclusion No. 4: There are no restrictions from Dell regarding the number of total paritions present and no restrictions regarding which OS to boot from which partition.Most of the stuff ist trivial and can be verified here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_table#PC_BIOS_partition_types
When I installed MediaDirect it did put the MediaDirect partition in an extended partition. Thus left space for logical partitions (which I indeed created and can boot off).I doubt that dell creates somewhere 4 primary partitions (without extended partitions). But even in that case, it's technically possible to change one of the paritions into a logical one embedded into an extended partition.Message Edited by 7oby on 03-16-2008 08:30 AMconclusion 5 : could you tell us how to create a new partition for Linux without delete a Dell partition, and without loss anything (DMD for example) Dell made on HD? I mean a working guide or how to? If you have a solution you are more than welcome because personally I wasn't able to find anything, me and Dell to because I asked them without answers....
note: shrinking the Vista partition (using the tool inside vista itself ) make an not-allocated space that is impossible to format.... or use ...
I'll try though I might not hit the step-by-step guide that you require.
First let's have a look at the default partitioning (the long commen in this post also confirms the major steps I already mentioned):
http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/75577/Default_Harddrive_Partitioning
You see that the (logical) DMD partition already resides within the extended partition. Once you shrink Vista, you should be able to use that space for an additional partition. Don't worry about that I wrote "should be able to". In my setup it's the case, however what I don't know is, wether the windows diskpart tool allows you to do that. In my case it does: I click on the free space, right mouse button and on"create simple volume". That's it. Done.
However it might be the case depending on the position of primary and extended partitions, that the GUI version of Windows partitioning tool might not be smart enough and tries to create primary instead of logical partitions.
If that's the case you could switch to the Windows Command Line version "diskpart". Still I don't know whether this program works in this case for logical partitions and even small mistakes can destroy your partitioning setup. Therefore: I do not recommend "diskpart" here and instead recommend:
http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/
Burn this one to a CD. In fact it's a linux boot CD. Don't worry! It's GUI based, very simple to use and much more powerful than Windows partitioning. It does not require any Linux knowledge.
1. Run chkdisk on your Windows partition if you want to shrink that.
2. Boot from gparted (select first boot entry - that's sufficient in general)
3. Shrink Windows partition if necessary (here gparted is much more powerful than Windows: it can shrink even further than 50% of the original size, since it is also able to move the Master File Table MFT).
4. create a logical partition in the new free space. If possible assign a filesystem (NTFS) already
5. reboot in Windows and format partition
Gparted can also shift partitions.
More (technical) info about how extended/logical partitions are implemented on the harddrive can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Boot_Record
In general it's a smart Idea to back up the MBR (containing the partition table). In case of extended/logical partitions you have to back up more than that (the EBR also). Keep that in mind. Too many people destroyed their parition tables (and data) by pushing MediaDirect button at the wrong time or creating some weird RAID setups without knowing they destroy the data contained on the drive already.
I'll check here and see if you succeeded. In case you get stuck, post where. I have gparted here and a complex partitioning as well and should be able to assist at problems.
ultra-fearless
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Posted March 16th, 2008 23:00
What are the 4 partitions currently on the drive, you did not state there were 4 partitions on your drive.
Also Have you thought about installing a Boot Manager like System Commander.
Dear 7boy First TnX a lot for your kindly answer.
To clarify the situation is better to say you my HD config. : xps 1730 with dual sata HD raid (0) one raid (0) I suppose, I don’t remember the code but are two sata hd viewed by the system as one.
Abut the vista “tool” to shrink/expand create/delete partitions I have to confirm your supposition that is not “smart” that’s why it’s not able to allocate the not-allocated space. Unfortunately gparted, maybe for sata configuration, doesn’t “see” any partition on HDs, it recognize them as unpartitioned HD !!!! That’s why was impossible to me create an extended partition to store Linux (Ubuntu).
My actual solution was to install Linux on an external USB HD.
But if with your help will be possible to install ubuntu “inside” the laptop, leaving Dell partitions untouched I’ll immediatly post a Guide in my forum (obviously I’ll write you as author J , or if you want to write it by yourself .......).
TnX aganin and have a nice day. Pet
Message Edited by Petengy on 03-17-2008 02:32 AMDealing with RAID0 setups is technically no problem. I've done that before.
The problem with GParted (and most Linux Live DVDs) is that it does not reconize your RAID0 setup and therefore can't change the partitions. However there are solutions. The key is the program dmraid, which tells linux about the particular structure of a Software RAID (which the Intel Matrix Storage Manageris) and mounts the entire RAID0. After that you can use GParted to partition and finally install Linux keeping RAID0.
dmraid supports Intel Matrix Storage Manager (and many others):http://people.redhat.com/heinzm/sw/dmraid/readme
Here's an excellent guide to launch dmraid prior to {k}ubuntu installation such that it can be partition the RAID0 and install the OS. Unfortunately its in german:
http://www.realriot.de/index.php/2007/04/25/fakeraid-howto-ubuntu/
The automatic translated version is somewhat aweful:
Google Translated Ubuntu / dmraid guie
I'd expect the commercial distros to support Software RAID setups natively (at least it's a unique selling point). Therefore you might have a look at those RedHat, OpenSuse, ... maybe they contain already dmraid in an easy to use manner.
The partitioning itself shouldn't be a problem. The Windows partitioning feature is somewhat limited, but I'm pretty sure that tools like
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/
can easily create space and partitions for Linux on RAID0 setups even in cases where the Windows partitioning tool fails.
You'd still need to get a linux distro that supports RAID0 by means of dmraid - even if you created the partitions by some of the above magic, since the distro needs to insto into the partition. The ubuntu RAID setup guide above tells how to do that.
--
Since the problem of Linux + Software RAID0 is a general one, I'm sure it's addressed in many blogs like the one above I mentioned. Search if the one above doesn't fulfil your needs.
regards,
7oby
Message Edited by 7oby on 03-17-2008 06:48 AM
ejn63
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Posted March 15th, 2008 13:00
Short of replacing the hard drive, you cannot. You'll need to decide what to delete before you can create a partition to use for Linux; the easiest thing to remove is the recovery partition.