Re: Brand spankin new user...

[Craig B <craig@nospam.org>]

Soul Existance wrote:
> 
<snip>
> ... so is it going to destroy any data on my win98 partition, or when
> i do this change, does it only partition the 3 gigs i set aside... 
<snip>

You will be using Linux fdisk to create your root and swap partitions
during the installation.  You will see your dos partition when you list
the table.  As long as you don't make any changes to the DOS partition
you should be fine.  There is no guarantee though, there is a risk you
could damage your windows installation.  Back it up first.  It is safer
to use a secondary disk for Linux because that shelters the windows
partition table from Linux fdisk. It only has to write the table on the
second disk and does not touch the first disk.  

At the end of the install, you will be prompted to install the Linux
boot loader (lilo) on the Master Boot Record (MBR) which is located at
the beginning of the primary drive.  Lilo is the utility that comes with
Linux to provide a boot menu upon system startup.  That is a safe
operation because if your system won't boot after you load lilo, you can
use "fdisk /mbr" from your Windows startup disk to restore the MBR and
boot back into Windows.  You can then boot Linux from a floppy and
resolve your lilo configuration problems subsequently rewriting lilo to
the MBR and giving it another go.  Before you do anything, make a couple
of "startup" disks from Windows 98 "Add/Remove Programs".  Make a couple
Linux boot disks when prompted at the end of the install as well.  You
will definitely need both later if not sooner.

One last note, I don't mean to discourage you from using Debian, but it
_is_ the most difficult to install. I understand that RedHat and Caldera
are the easiest.  You may want to get your feet wet with one of those
and then graduate to Debian (it has a lot to offer) after you have
earned some salt.

Good luck and have fun!