Alot of people are using,or are going to be usinf a distro of linux sometime in their life. So here's a simple tutorial for how to make a partition with partition magic to install your linux onto.


STEP ONE-defrag

Although partitionmagic isn't supossed to damage your information by making/moving partitions...it's always a good idea to defrag the drive that you are adding the partition to.

STEP TWO-select the drive

Now you select what drive you want to partition. Here I'm putting the partition on my third hard drive...you can put it anywhere really. When you put it on your main har drive your machine will have to reboot to move the information...so don't be scared when it does. LOL

STEP THREE-click 'next'

Basic easy to follow walkthrough approach here....alot of the recomended options will do you best. Just click NEXT at this step.

STEP FOUR-select Linux

Here you will select the file syatem you want your partition to support,LINUX would be the choice that you want.

STEP FIVE-select the drive

Here is where you select what drive you want the partition to be on. Again I have chosen my 80gig third drive. You can choose whatever drive you want really.

STEP SIX-where on the drive

Now it will ask you where on the selected drive you want the aprtition. I recomend making it AFTER your information....that is why you defraged it in the first place.

STEP SEVEN-select partition size

Here's where you select how large you want your partition to be. For time purposes,I made a 1gig partition....you can have it as large as you can afford. A good size is about 15gigs really,unless you are just learning...maybe 8-10 would do ya. (leave room for extra packets I say) The only thing you should change here is the size...everything else can stay as recomended.

STEP EIGHT-choose later

This is the one step that could screw you up....if you choose install the OS right away and you mess it up,well you might not be happy. Since most linux OS's are selfbooting cd/dvd now you should select to install LATER. (trust me)

STEP NINE-swap file

You just have to select YES and then click next

STEP TEN-where to put the swap file

I usually choose to put my swap between the windows partition and the linux OS partition. So just highlight the drive with the linux partition and select next and you should be fine.

STEP ELEVEN-where I put the swap

Here's where I selected to put mine

STEP TWELVE-swap file needs space

Now you choose which partition you want the swap to take space from. I choose the windows partition most of the time because it has more to spare. You choose what you like.

STEP THIRTEEN-how large of a swap

I would go with the recomended 500mb swap file myself....no need to buck the trend now.

STEP FOURTEEN-confirm your selections

Now that the partition and the swap file are placed properly,all you have to do is confirm.

STEP FIFTEEN-just have to apply

With everything done,the only thing left to do is apply your choices to the hard drive. Once you are happy with what you have,click the apply button at the bottom left and a window will pop up and let you see what's going on,or it will reboot in the case that you put the aprtitions on the main drive.

STEP SIXTEEN-done

With everything finnished,the only thing left for you to do is select what distro to install and go through that process. Alot of them have good easy to follow install GUI's....so don't be too scared in trying one. Also,there are alot of live cd's out there that will let you try a distro out without an install.


enjoy.

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Man punqewe, thank you but that's exactly what I did. Step by Step but when the system automatically rebooted...everything was as it was before. I don't get it...I've done it before with Mandrake (same way) but for some reason PM is being stubborn...

Yeah that is weird. I rmember something about lb4 or lb8 being turned on in the bios....but thats till wouldn't do what it did to you. Maybe 'get' another version/copy of PM and try again?


PS-I wish I could use mandrake again...it's a nice distro. I also have the whole set of ubuntu disks that they mailed me....but since I have this ATI x800 video card I can't use anything. D@mn vesa drivers!!!!

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This may or may not apply, but when I first messed with Partition Magic, I did'nt have the "registered" version, so the changes I made would not take effect. Just an idea, probably not what the problem is.

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Actually, you DO need the full version for changes to take effect. Thanks for the great TuT.

With all the Linux talk going on, I had no idea we already had a guide for this. Will definitely come in handy for a lot of peeps, nice one Punq!

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I just saw this before too. I was wondering if a swamp is needed for ubuntu? Is the swamp just generic among linux?

The Swap File is kinda akin to the page file in Windows, with my limited knowledge of Linux, I do believe they are necessary.

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Ah I see. Anything else thats really linux based I should know about? (besides the terminal)