fedora on laptop
 

i`m gonna put fedora on my thinkpad but i`m not ready to say goodbye to win xp so it`s gonna have to be dualboot. :)

first of i could use some advice to partition the hdd

win xp is already installed on the 30 gig hdd, now i was thinking to make this setup:
10 gig win xp ntfs
15 gigs for documents and stuff accessible to win xp and fedora
5 gig for fedora

and i read the numerous problems with lilo installed on the mbr and inaccessible win xp partitions
could i use the win xp bootmanager instead or not??

thx for any advice

you forgot the boot partition

use the RH9 bootmanager, works fine
inaccessible winxp partitions are caused by messing with the MBR. create your partitions with PartitionMagic, so you don't have to use the RH9 partition tool.

then RH9 does not have to touch the partition table. it still has to rewrite a part of the MBR though

steps:
1. partition
A:, NTFS, bootable, primary partition
B: FAT, primary
C: boot partition, 50MB, bootable
D: RH9 partition

2. install WinXP
3. install RH9, it will automatically create an option in the Boot loader to load Win XP

no, the winxp bootmanager refuses to boot any partitions but windows.

Most agree grub is the best linux bootmanager, not lilo. First install windows, linux afterwards, otherwhise the windows bootmanager will overwrite lilo/grub.

10/15/5 sounds fine. If fedora uses the 3.4.x kernel, format the data parition in fat, if fedora uses the 2.6.x kernel, use ntfs.

Don't forget a boot partition and swap partition for linux.

it is possible though, to boot Linux with the Windows boot manager

with some effort and time you can use the WinXP bootmanager, so there's no risk at all you mess up anything

Loadlin

thx for the replies

i also found this guide: click
gonna try it this weekend :o

and what do you think of the dualboot on your laptop.
I'm thinking of doing the same, but i have some important data on my laptop so i'm not really keen on trying this if something can go wrong.

create the partitions for Fedora with a Partitionmagic bootdisk. once the partitions are in order it can't go wrong, unless you start messing with the windows partition from Linux

i'm having a problem.

I have a hp pavillion ze5527ea
512 ram
60gig hd
first partition winxp, second data, then linux partitions.
No problems with installing fedora, but when i try to boot in linux it hangs on "setting up local disks".

Some (fast) help would be really appreciated.

Thanx

i found out that he hangs on the firewirecontroller.
Is it possible to make linux stop trying to initialize my firewire controller?

is firewire installed as a module in the kernel? I guess so

edit /etc/modules.conf and comment the entry about the firewire controller

it should look then something like
# alias firewire-controller [CHIP]

i let fedora make the parttitions because the ones i made with partion magic gave an error when trying to install.
the dualboot and Everything else worked fine, yes worked :(
i managed to f*** up the administrative rights on xp ( i was administrator but couldn't install or change settings )
so then i just reinstalled because i could use a fresh install, but ofcourse grub isn't working so i can just load xp
Do i have to install fedora once again or can i just install grub again or something???

moral of the story: make sure you put your important data on a different partition than your OS and your fine

i did that for the firewire indeed, then i had problems with the process "checking for new hardware" so i disabled that.
Now it works like a charm ... to boot up.

BUT i'm having problems with up2date now. I can't do it. I get the "available packages" list, but then i can't continue. it just hangs. I think it's because i have an old version of up2date, but i don't kow how to update it to the new version :)

Still working on the up2date, but i also noticed that my laptop keeps using the settings for when it's not connected to a powersupply.
So my screen is a bit too dark and it goes to standby mode real fast and things like that, any idea how i can change this?