🚀 go-pugleaf

Miki (mihab@concentric.net) wrote:
: Hi,
: I am trying to set up Linux Red Hat on my machine running Win 95.
: Created 1 more  partition. Now what ?
: How do I install linux on the second partition ? (drive D:) Its asking
: me for dir ??..... defaults to /dev/hda ??.... What's the difference
: between primary/extended or logical partition and how do I know which is
: which ?

I assume you've used Dos's fdisk to create the second partion? DONT.  
This is not recommended though it can work.

Use fdisk under linux to delete the partition and create a linux one with 
Linux's fdisk.

Due to Some honchos (sp?) foresight.  A harddisk can only have 4 primary 
partitions.  This is OK if you only have 1 OS (maybe) but Its nice to 
have at least 3 partitions for linux.

1) /
2) /usr
3) swap

If you have linux and Win95 with only 1 partition (c:)  you can get away 
with only using 4 primary partitions.  BUT be warned that if you want to 
add any more partitions that you have to clobber 1 of your existing 
partitions.

the primary partitions are labeled 1-4
/dev/hda1 /dev/hda2 /dev/hda3 /dev/hda4

If you want more than 4 partitions, you have to sacrifice 1 of your 
primary partitions and make an extended partition, you only need 1 
extended partition.  An extended partition is just a container for logical 
partitions.   A logical partition is just interpreted like a regular 
primary partition as far as the filesystem and device name is concerned.
You can tell which primary partition is the extended partition by the <> 
brackets around the >4 partition numbers ... lets go dmesg

Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 <hda5 hda6 hda7>

Here the extended partition is /dev/hda4 

/dev/hda5, 6, 7...
are the logical paritions (usually under dos d: e: f:...)

The first logical partition is always 5 even if you haven't used up all 
of your primary partitions. So the table can look like this:

hda: hda1 hda2 <hda5 hda6 hda7> hda3

Meaning that /dev/hda2 is the extended partition.  Notice that hda4 is 
not used.

Clear as mud?

Mail me if you have any more questions.

--
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