[wellylug] laptop advice sought

Lyndsay Mountfort lyndsaym at paradise.net.nz
Fri Jul 22 15:29:59 NZST 2005


Nick Jensen wrote:

> On 7/22/05, *Wayne Koorts* wrote:
>
>     Whatever you do, try to use Windows-based partitioning software and
>     preferably Partition Magic if you can.  I have had a bad experience
>     with a bug in the common Linux resizing software used in most distro's
>     which will make your Windows drive unable to boot unless you
>     re-format. 
>
>  
> I don't agree with this. Partition Magic is expensive, and the only
> time I've used it it destroyed my Windows Partition. I've never had a
> problem with Linux partioning tools when resizing or creating partitions.
>
> Nick


It sounds as if this should be relatively simple, assuming you're happy
to use the space available in the 18GB partition that doesn't contain
the windows installation. You just need to backup any data, identify the
target partition, and then replace it with your swap and Linux partition.

My current choice is SimplyMepis, which works brilliantly on my Asus
laptop. Installation is simple from the livecd, about a 20 minute task
to get the default setup up and running. If you want to test it out and
don't have a cd, contact me off-list and we can arrange something.

It'll be slightly more complex if you want to grab some more of the
other windows partition first, but Mepis (qtparted) handled that
perfectly for me.  And FWIW my experience is more like Nick's - I've
installed many flavours of Linux over the last few years using their
several different partitioning tools, and *never* caused any damage to a
Windows partition.

Lyndsay




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