Windows atop of Gentoo install?

[NagaDrag]

I have recently developed a need to install Windows XP on top of my Gentoo install (basically a 20gb windows partition is needed) for school-based stuff

I have a 120gb (laptop) drive, partitioned as follows:

Code: Select all

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1           9       72261   83  Linux
/dev/hda2              10         512     4040347+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda3             513       14593   113105632+  83  Linux

Here are my questions:
1) How would I resize a partition to make 20gb available for windows
2) Does the windows partition have to be the first one?
3) What would I have to do to grub to make it work for linux and windows?
4) Would I just create a mountpoint for the windows partition in fstab, after, to be able to move things about?

PS: I really have not had any experience with any of these things. And sorry if it's in the wrong forum category

[BradN]

1. Specifics depend on the filesystem in use - first resize the filesystem, then resize the partition in fdisk. You may have to boot from a livecd to perform the filesystem resize.

2. I don't believe so, as it will pretty much think it's the first one anyway (it won't recognize the linux ones). If there's problems, you can always change the partition numbers in fdisk by deleting and recreating them with the same start/end positions but different numbers. After you install windows, the linux bootloader will be hosed, so be ready with a livecd or something to fix grub.

3. Add something like:
title Windows XP
root (hd0,3)
chainloader +1

4. Yep, along with installing fuse and ntfs3g. After that, just use filesystem type "ntfs-3g" or "ntfs3g" (I forget), and it should work fine. Keep in mind windows file permissions are ignored, and new files are always set (in the NTFS) to fully accessible by everyone.

[NagaDrag]

1. Specifics depend on the filesystem in use - first resize the filesystem, then resize the partition in fdisk. You may have to boot from a livecd to perform the filesystem resize.

2. I don't believe so, as it will pretty much think it's the first one anyway (it won't recognize the linux ones). If there's problems, you can always change the partition numbers in fdisk by deleting and recreating them with the same start/end positions but different numbers. After you install windows, the linux bootloader will be hosed, so be ready with a livecd or something to fix grub.

3. Add something like:
title Windows XP
root (hd0,3)
chainloader +1

1) Using reiserFs

2) I want to do it with as least loss of data as possible (making a backup onto an external drive as we speak though) Is there something like a partition magic for linux that is available?

3) does the HD0,3 relate to partition position ?

[Hu]

You do not say what school things you need Windows for, but I suspect that they will be relatively light in terms of performance requirements. If so, another option would be for you to install Windows as a virtual machine running as a guest on your existing Linux host. This would avoid the need to repartition your existing Linux system, since the virtual disk for the Windows guest can be stored as a file on your filesystem. It also provides a small measure of safety for existing data, since it avoids letting Windows write directly to your hard disk.

There are many x86 virtualization tools available for Linux. If you have new enough hardware, you may also have hardware support for virtualization, which can reduce the performance penalty significantly.

[BradN]

1) Using reiserFs

2) I want to do it with as least loss of data as possible (making a backup onto an external drive as we speak though) Is there something like a partition magic for linux that is available?

3) does the HD0,3 relate to partition position ?

1. Ok, then you'll want to look into the resize_reiserfs utility (part of reiserfsprogs which you should have already installed).

2. There's gparted, but I don't have much experience with it and can't offer any advice other than "it exists".

3. Yes, (hd0,3) means the first hard drive (0), and the fourth partition (3). By the way, "chainloader +1" essentially tells it to load the boot sector from that partition. I was assuming you would likely install windows into partition 4, however it's possible the windows installer will insist on making an extended partition and you'll end up actually using partition 5.

[cioannou]

Gparted actually exists and works perfectly, you can also use that from any LiveCD distro.

You can resize/edit/create partitions very easily with this.

As for the windows thing, I had a similar problem and instead of installing on a separate partition I just installed it in a "VirtualBox", works like charm.
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