partitioning problem

[John McGregor]

On Thu, 2005-02-03 at 15:05 -0500, Simon Tonekham wrote:
> well folks, it seems to me that this is getting way too complicated
> for 
> me on creating manual partitions. I guess I have to "abandon"
> creating 
> the partitions manually and removing the FAT32 partition altogether.
> I'm 
> simply going to use my full 30GB Hard Drive as my Fedora installation 
> and probably going to install an NTFS driver on my Fedora system. I 
> found it out at this link: http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/ Do you 
> think installing an NTFS driver (which allows me to view NTFS
> partitions 
> in a Fedora system) is necessary or do I just simply have to create a 
> VFAT partition in Fedora? If so, how do I do that? Could you give me
> at 
> least step-by-step instructions on how to create a VFAT partition
> while 
> in Fedora? Do I also need to be in root?

During the install phase you are acting as root. To reiterate what the
others have said, using the driver to access NTFS partitions is
experimental at best and the risks at this stage of the driver's
development far outweigh the benefits.



> 
> I hope this helps. Also, how do I keep my Fedora system up-2-date? 
> That's what I want to know. If I don't like Fedora and prefer to
> change 
> to an different operating system, let's say, Mandrake, how do I
> remove 
> Fedora along with the GRUB boot-loader?

Fedora has a utility called 'up2date' which will fetch and configure
security and bug fixes and you can use 'apt or 'yum' to download and
install software.

To change to a new distro just reformat the drive and install the new
one.Sometimes a new instance of GRUB will not overwrite the one in the
MBR and the install could fail. The 'trick' is to use LILO instead and
vice verse IE there can only be one boot loader in the MBR, so if GRUB
was used by the old distro over write it with LILO, or if LILO was used
overwrite it with GRUB.Once you get more experienced you will be able to
forego this and just edit the existing boot loader and correct any
errors.

John

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