Linux [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Making Room for Linux Before Installation

You can resize your Windows partition when installing some Linux distributions, but not others. For instance, Mandrake and SuSE can make room for Linux during installation, but Fedora cannot. When you can't resize during installation, you need to resize the Windows partition before starting the installation. It's best to get a copy of Partition Magic for this purpose (www.symantec.com/partitionmagic/).

In some cases, you can use the FIPS utility to resize the Windows partition. However, often FIPS is not successful because of unmovable blocks in the Windows partition.

NOTE

Be sure to defragment and back up your hard disk before starting installation, as discussed in the previous section.

FIPS is on the Linux installation CD, probably in dosutils\fips20, but it may be in a different directory. You need to copy it onto a floppy disk that you can boot to resize the partition:

FIPS cannot resize a Windows XP NTFS file system. If your Windows partition is Windows XP NTFS, you can install Mandrake, which can resize NTFS file systems during installation, or you can purchase a commercial product that can resize NTFS file systems, such as Partition Magic. Or you can add a hard disk to your system where Linux can be installed.