[makada]

Ok, to tell the truth I was born and brought up with DOS and then Windows. Currently have a desktop with Windows XP SP2 on it. Today I thought I should try Linux and have downloaded Ubuntu 8.04LTS and burned the iso image to a cd. Tried the live cd and its not that bad.
So I want to install it on my hard drive.
I just have a few queries
1) My 80 gb hard disk is partitioned into 20 gb primary(C and remaining is an extended partition which is partitioned into 20 gb logical drives.(D:,E:,F. Considering I can empty the e: or f: completely, how do I get ubuntu to install in this partition e: or f: ?

2)When I try to defragment the c:, I see lot of green blocks referring to unmovable files--how do I move these? Is defragmentation of all drives mandatory prior to installation of ubuntu?

3)Will Ubuntu recognize the files in my NTFS hard disk or does it only recognize its own file system which is....(I forgot it)?

4)I read somewhere that we have to partition the hard disk with systemrescue cd (www.sysresccd.org) before installing ubuntu...Is this true?

Thanks in advance for all your patience and help

[ZeRealBigBoss]

I installed and tried Ubuntu only once, some years ago, so I can only comment relying on my old experiences with Red-Hat (formerly) and recently Suse (I prefer that one as it is really a professional version of Linux).

First of all: do you have an old 20 or 10GB disk laying around or can you get one cheap? The best way then would be to connect this one as first slave or second master and install Ubuntu on that one, and all your problems are gone. Windows requires that it be installed on the first master, Linux does not care.

A general remark, but anyone who knows better please correct me: NTFS files can be read by Linux, at least by Suse, but they can not (yet) be written; that is the reason why on my mixed machines all Windows file systems are FAT32. The biggest HD in use is 250GB, and 230 of that is FAT32 in one partition; the rest is Suse 10.3.

If you empty one partition, you theoretically do not have to run a re-partitioner; you can install in that one in the set-up. However, the installation needs to format with a new file system, so there must be a physically defined contiguous unit, and that is normally only possible to achieve with a repartitioner.

In Linux you will not see drives as under Windows, but all partitions are treated as folders. That means that there is no drive indication that you are used to but you have to choose and basically guess which one is the right one if they all are formatted as NTFS; Ubuntu may be different in this. Risky, because the capacity indication in your case is the same for all and the sequence in which they are shown is not necessarily the C-D-E-F one; if you choose the wrong partition to install in, its data are gone. A separate HD is differently and very clearly indicated. Btw, you will of course choose the manual installation, not the automated one if you want to define where to install.

The Windows defrag does not move what it calls system files (e.g. "my music" !) but marks them as unmovable; a good repartitioner does not have any problems with that. An additional reason to indeed use a repartitioner.

As said before, better get a used small disk; 10GB is already way enough.

Allow me to make a remark about your use of one physical hard disk only. You can indeed make back-ups from one disk to the other, but the word disk is very confusing as it relates to what in reality is only a partition. If ever the first cylinder of your physical drive gets lost, and that is not rare, your complete HD including D:, E: and F: becomes inaccessible, so you lose everything anyway.