[goladith]

i just ordered a copy of Linux Fedora Core 3 64 bit, and i just realized i am rinngin in NTSF HD format, can it understand that format? or am I FUBAR on that?

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Yes & No. NTFS read-only mounts are reliable but because M$ don't document the format you enable writing at your peril.

Preparation (assuming a single HD)...

Make sure there's no errors (boot-time chkdsk with surface scan & fix enabled) then defrag the partition (disk manager w2k/XP) & shrink it (eg: partition magic) - then create a new partition in the empty space. The Linux installer will probably find the empty partition (you can certainly tell it) and let install itself there. Allow it to install either grub or lilo (whichever Fedora uses) and end result will be a boot screen much like the NT one. It is possible to do it the other way round except whenever windows gets a hint the bootsector has altered it has a habit of stomping on it: having the linux bootloader first prevents windows from ever finding this out.

[swampdog]

Yes & No. NTFS read-only mounts are reliable but because M$ don't document the format you enable writing at your peril.

Preparation (assuming a single HD)...

Make sure there's no errors (boot-time chkdsk with surface scan & fix enabled) then defrag the partition (disk manager w2k/XP) & shrink it (eg: partition magic) - then create a new partition in the empty space. The Linux installer will probably find the empty partition (you can certainly tell it) and let install itself there. Allow it to install either grub or lilo (whichever Fedora uses) and end result will be a boot screen much like the NT one. It is possible to do it the other way round except whenever windows gets a hint the bootsector has altered it has a habit of stomping on it: having the linux bootloader first prevents windows from ever finding this out.

[goladith]

i thaught it should be the other way around, install windows, other wise XP will tak eover the MBR, but, maby i'm wrong, but also, i am going ot be buing a SATA HD probly, will i be able to run it with Linux, since that will prolby be in linux drive

[Tim Wellman]

Yep... since XP is already installed, you just need to use a program like partition magic to shrink the partition and make some free space on the harddrive (10 gig is more than enough for Linux, and even 5 gig should be fine). The Linux installer will ask if you want to install to the free space (no need to partition it as linux, just make some free space when you shrink the windows partition).

Now, the bad news, Fedora won't read NTFS partitions as it comes from the box... you need to recompile the kernel, or to make it easy, use a program to do it for you
http://linux-ntfs.so...pm/fedora2.html

you'll need to know the exact kernel version you have, so open a terminal and type

# uname -r -p

then download the kernel fix you need, run it, and then... you're still not set :-)

You need to create a directory for the mount in your root
mkdir /mnt/windows

You'll still need to run the mount command
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows -t ntfs -r -o umask=0222

make sure your windows partition is hda1, otherwise change that part in the above command... you can find that number by typing
fdisk -l /dev/hda

you can also mount the ntfs partition automatically each time you boot up by adding
/dev/hda1 /mnt/windows ntfs ro,defaults,umask=0222 0 0
into your fstab

using a text editor, browse to /etc/fstab
enter the above line at the bottom (you'll see the format in fstab, just follow what the other entries look like), and save... then reboot

I'm writing this mostly from memory, there's a little more info here
http://www.ces.clems.../fc2T42-2.shtml
http://www.stud.uni-...tall_notes.html

Or you could just use Mandrake Linux that sees ntfs partitions right out of the box :-)

Also, not sure about the latest release of Fedora, but Redhat no longer supports mp3's... you need to get a fix for that, too