[plug] New to list - file system

[Brad Campbell]

"Mike Massen, Network Power Systems" wrote:
> 
> At 11:07 AM 3/02/2000 +0800, you wrote:
> >On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Mike Massen,  Network Power Systems wrote:
> >
> >> A.   Install linux fresh on a Hdisk 420Mb cap but retain the old
> >
> >Possible, but not for a beginner. Allow at least 1GB for linux, plus a DOS
> >partition. Keep your current HDD and add a new one for linux. 420mb is a
> >paperweight these days.
> 
> mmm OK - I take it then that even with a larger drive its either not
> possible or not appropriate to have the DOS 6.2 file system to base linux
> on. ?
> 
> In other words - is it essential the root linux drive have linux file system
> only and not any other file system ?
> 
> The reason my initial favour of this is I can just unplug the drive and
> plug it into any other of my Win 3.11 or W95 systems to do backup, transfer
> or whatever with the hassle of a nic etc etc
> 
> :)M

One of the things your not looking at here is the cluster size of a
fat16 system
when you get up around 500mb, and worse for bigger.. Thats a massive
amount of
wasted space..

My advice.. go and buy a shiny new seagate/quantum 8gb drive for about
$250
make a 450mb dos partition in partition one, and go wild with ext2
partitions 
on the rest of the drive..
Then install lilo to boot dos/linux and have your dos partition mounted
in linux

If you really want to have some fun, install dosemu and run most of your
dos
programs under linux..
Wine for most of your win 3.11 programs..
Then you may find you rarely have to boot back to dos/win311 at all..

If you need a hand doing any of this, there are bucketloads of howto's
out there
and most of us have done similar at least once and tend to be pretty
happy to
answer well targeted questions..

This way you can still plug the drive into another machine and access
the fat 
partitions and it meets all of the above criteria..


-- 
Brad....
"The ultimate result is that some innovations that would
truly benefit consumers never occur for the sole reason
that they do not conincide with Microsoft's self-interest"
- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson
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