Hi people I am new to linux and very much want to try it but i am scared with all this partition. How does partition work. When I start my computer do I get an option to start windows or Linux. Can I un-partition if I don't want to use linux and go back to the original setting for windows. Also what's the ideal memory,ram,diskspace etc etc should be used to run a smoothly linux program. I have windows 98. thanxs people

If the idea of repartitioning your Hard Drive makes you uncomfortable, there are several 'live' distributions available. A live distribution is one which can run from the CD-ROM, and requires no instalation on your Hard Drive, but your computer must be able to start from the CD-ROM drive. You can get Knoppix, MandrakeMove, or PCLinux as well as Freesbee [a distribution of Free BSD], and there are others available too I am sure. System requirements are usually posted on the distribution's WEB site. Ernie [ewilcox@buckeye-express.com] ICQ 41060744 Registered Linux User 247790 Contributing author to Uptime http://www.steidler.net/uptime

Hopefully, you know what a disk partition is? Do you have more than 1 win partition? Do you have an unused partition? If you do not have an unused partition >2GB and have to carve such a Linux partition out of your C: drive( as example), you are correct to be scared. There are repartitioning utilities. I do not have 1st-hand experience with them. From posts, I gather they mostly work, but occasionally cause problems. The general answer is you can remove an installed Linux and likely re-repartition back to win. About 256 meg ram would be comfortable, more so if you if you do as ernie suggested.

Your best bet would be to get a partitioning tool that has the ability to resize your partitions. I did this recently on an old pentium laptop. Have win95 and Linux on an IBM 1.13 GB HD. I used Vcom's Driveworks to shrink the win95 partition and make two new partitions for Linux. One partition is to hold the OS and the other for the swap. Linux has a boo loader called Lilo that also acts as a boot manager as well. Lilo will allow for you to select between booting win 98 or linux. There is another newer boot loader called Grub, but I know nothing of it. Lilo will do what you want for the most part though. as for uninstalling Linux just remove the Linux partitions and resize your win98 partition back to its original size. Then with a win98 boot disk run type fdisk /mbr. That will should get rid of the Lilo boot loader and reinstall win98's original boot loader. There are third party boot managers that are far more easier to install and uninstall such as Vcom's System Commander. Also you might need to run Linux's fdisk partitioning utility to fix some partition type problems as some third party partitioning utilities don't correctly set the partition type for Linux correctly.

If you can it might be better for you to install a second hard drive and dedicate it entirely to linux, then you wont have to mess around with your windoze partition on the first hard drive. The bootable CD is probably best to start with, no need to install it to a hard drive at all!

I have a how to on installing and partitioning the hard drive at fedoradocs.net, I don't meant to just be plugging my site, but it will help him. anyhow. It's not as bad as what it sounds, and you can remove linux and resize the partitions back to normal if you don't like linux. Thanks for your time. -- Travis