Re: Question about dual-booting/VMware

[Matthew Saltzman <mjs ces clemson edu>]

On Tue, 31 May 2005, R. Kesler wrote:

> I'm a new Linux user and just downloaded Fedora Core
> 3.  I was planning on running a dual-boot
> configuration with WinXP Home Edition.  My computer
> has a C: partition (72GB) and a D: partition (4.66GB).
> It is a Compaq and the D: partition is used as a
> system recovery partition.  I am more than experienced
> in a Microsoft environment and was wondering if my
> current configuration would cause any problems when I
> begin to install Fedora.
>
> What I really want to know is if I should create a
> 10GB partition in DOS then install Fedora and direct
> the installer to use the 10GB partition or should I
> let the Fedora installer create my partitions?  I know
> I will need a /root partition and a Linux swap
> partition.  Any help would be appreciated as I am new
> to Linux.

If you have unallocated space on your drive, the FC installer can 
partition it for you.  If your drives are full of Win partitions, you'll 
need a program like PartitionMagic or parted (kparted/qparted) to resize 
the Win partitions and make room for Linux.

I believe you'll need for the partition containing /boot to be primary, so 
either / will have to be primary or you will need aabout 100M of primary 
space for /boot.  It's handy to have /home (and maybe /usr/local if you 
install lots of non-RPM software) on their own partitions because it will 
make upgrading easier later.

> Also, anyone used Fedora with VMware?  I see that Red
> Hat 7.0-9.0 is compatible with VMware, as well as
> RHEL AS/ES/WS 4.0 (32-bit), RHEL AS/ES/WS 2.1, 3.0,
> and
> RHEL Advanced Server 2.1.

I'm running VMware 5 on an FC3 host with no problem.  I dual-boot with 
WinXP Pro (site-licensed version--see below) and boot the WinXP 
installation natively and in VMware.  It's a bit complicated to set up, 
but it works smoothly after that, with a couple of exceptions:

(1) I really hosed WinXP once after suspending it in VMWare and then 
forgetting and booting natively.  Don't make that mistake!

(2) I don't have this problem with site-licensed XP Pro, but you will: 
When you boot in VMware, your hardware profile changes and WinXP will want 
to re-register with Microsoft.  When you boot back in to WinXP native, 
your hardware profile changes and WinXP will want to re-register with 
Microsoft.  It doesn't take too many of those before Microsoft thinks you 
are doing something nefarious and refuses to register your WinXP.

I don't know much about going the other way (WinXP host, dual-boot FC3 
guest) if that's what you were thinking about.  Take a look at the VMware 
Knowledge Base and Newsgroups.

> Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.
> Thanks.
>
> Richard
>
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--
		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs