From: dendisch@cat.physics.uwo.ca (Denis Endisch) Subject: Re: [summary] Installing Linux newbie Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1993 15:04:56 GMT
ph9991ha@uwrf.edu (James F Hall) writes:
> I had a lot of trouble when I first installed Linux, and I thought it
> would be better if someone wrote a step-by-step installation guide for
> first-time Linux users.
> I will assume that you are trying to install Linux without keeping
> another operating system on your machine at the same time you have
> Linux. This is probably the easiest way to go at first. If you
> decide later on to add another operating system, you can take those
> steps when you are ready.
It's not easy to divide a single partition later to have a second
partition for whatever. Especially newbies should keep a small
DOS partition.
> 4. Using the help found in fdisk, delete all of the old partitions.
> Then, ask for a new partition, which will be a primary partition,
> called #1, and use the full number of cylinders of your hard drive.
> The program will tell you how many cylinders you have.
This will work only if you have more than 4 MB of RAM. Without
a swap partition you will run out of memory already during
installation if you have only 4MB.
Even with more RAM it is a good idea to have a swap partition.
Swap files are possible, but slow.
So I would recommend to have at least 3 partitions:
1 DOS
2 linux
3 linux-swap
Denis