What Fips does is make a new primary
partition out of the free space in your hard disk. This is an inherently
dangerous operation and it's a good idea to back up all your important
data lest something go wrong. Having said that
Fips has been used successfully by a large
number of people in different conditions and unless there is something
already wrong with your hard disk, FAT (File Allocation
Table) or partition table things will work just fine. You should read the
Fips documentation.
Before you set out to partition the hard disk you have to decide
how you want to boot into Linux. The default and most common method is to
use Lilo – a simple and basic bootloader
program that overwrites (after saving) your hard disk's
MBR (Master Boot Record) and on booting the system
gives you a choice between booting either Windows or Linux. If you select
Windows it boots Windows and you are met with the familiar windows screen
or if you select Linux it boots Linux and if you don't make a choice in
the stipulated time – could be anything from
±5 seconds depending on on how you set it up
– it boots the default operating system, Windows or Linux, again
depending on how you set it up. You can restore your original
MBR anytime, when uninstalling Linux for instance,
either by typing /sbin/lilo -u within
Linux or typing fdisk /MBR in DOS
(this will overwrite the MBR with the original Windows
MBR) needless to say you would lose the option to boot
into Linux after this and thus access to your Linux partition.
The problem with using Lilo especially
for those with large disks is you would have to give up a substantial
chunk of your disk space to Linux. This is not a flexible solution since
while you can access your Windows partition from within Linux – the
large MPEG files can thus be stored in Windows and
accessed by both operating systems – the alternate is not
true.
This is because of an arcane BIOS limitation
that limits Lilo to the first
1024 cylinders of the hard disk. Windows and Linux have
no such limitations – it has something to do with address
translation and LBA which I have yet to fully
understand. Suffice to know the BIOS cannot access data
that is beyond this 1024 cylinder limit and since
Lilo is dependent on the
BIOS to boot the OS's nor can
it. Thus if you want to use Lilo to boot Linux
you got to make sure that the Linux partition is well below the
1024 cylinder limit. My hard disk – and most
modern hard disks have more than 1024 cylinders –
has 1650 cylinders and using
Lilo means making the Linux partition at about
the 1000 or 1010 cylinder mark which
translates into a whopping 5.2 Gb of
12.9 Gb to Linux and this wasn't working for me
since my Linux stuff hardly need more than 2 Gb
and my Windows data on the other hand with MP3's and
MPEG movies needs a lot more than
7 Gb.
The solution, and in Linux there are always solutions, is
Loadlin, an underrated alternative to
Lilo which is inexplicably not as popular or
widespread, inexplicable because it's far more flexible. If you intend to
use Loadlin and for those with large hard-disks
it's an excellent alternative you don't have to worry about the
1024 cylinder limit. Even better you can launch Linux
from your Windows desktop and modify your
autoexec.bat file to give you an option to boot into
either of the OS's during boot time not unlike
Lilo. You are then free to size your partitions
as you please. In my case a 2.2 Gb extended
partition with 3 logical partitions. That's right
3 partitions. It's normal to make three partitions, one
for the Kernel boot files, one for the root partition and one for the swap
partition but more on that later.
If you must use Lilo but are unwilling
to give up a lot of space there is a solution. Place the Linux partition
in the middle of the disk. You have to split the new partition you just
created using Fips into 2
(you would have to use Fips once again for
this) the first partition which falls within the 1024
cylinder limit can be used for Linux and the second you can use for
Windows. Thus your hard disk will then have 3
partitions the first and third for Windows and the one in the middle for
Linux. I don't like this arrangement but it's up to you. (At the moment we
are refering to the Linux partition as one but during the installation you
will split it into 3 using the Linux tools) You can
also make a small 15-20 Mb
/boot partition and place it before
the 1024 cylinder mark and the rest of the installation
anywhere on the hard disk but again I quite don't like this.