[Shaun M]

(Thanks in advance Terrynet for your advice and input in my last thread)

So, on my old desktop pc I reinstalled windows 98se. Then I ran Gparted LiveCD and cut the disk in half so I could install Xubuntu on it. But once I get to the partition portion of the installation ( for the alternate installation method ) I don't know how to get that newly created partition to install xubuntu. I thought I had it, then I keep getting a "no root file system is defined" message.

#1 primary is my windows with fat32
#2 primary is my supposed ext3 partition that Im trying to install on. ( when i used gparted, i thought i formatted this one with ext3 already)

What do I do?

Shaun M

Ok, I Think I figured out the partition portion, but I can't even make it past the "install the base system" I keep getting a bunch of warnings and ultimately it aborts that portion of the install. 3 days of trying to install this damn thing wtf.

[lotuseclat79]

Hi Shaun M,

First, Linux requires more than one partition:
1) a swap partition (2xsize of RAM)
2) a root partition (i.e. at the root directory of the Linux file system, i.e. '/')
3) an optional /boot partition

I don't know your cylinder layout between your WinXP and Linux partitions, and recommend you download and burn a Linux Live CD - if you don't already have one.

To give you a relative idea of the above three partitions, assuming you have an entire 80 GB disk available only for the Linux partitioning (you will have to do the math for your situation since you only appear to have one disk, and pay attention to which cylinders comprise your WinXP partition, so you do not munge things up):

With a Linux Live CD, run the command (as a regular user):
$ sudo fdisk -l
or as a root (admin Linux user):
# fdisk -l

Here is the output of my Linux 80 GB disk:
Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5fd95fd9

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 9538 76509562+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 9539 9729 1534207+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Note: 13 cylinders (1-13) for the boot partition marked with an '*', and the ID for both the boot and root partitions are 83, while the swap partition is ID 82 - all for an ext3 file system.

If the later part of the disk is partitioned for Linux, modify it into at least a swap and / root (two partitions) or optionally, add a third one for /boot. And, Note: the cylinder numbers would be starting with numbers > the end of the WinXP partition.

-- Tom

[TerryNet]

When I installed Xubuntu using the Alternative Installation CD somewhere along the line I was given the option to do some partitioning. I accepted that option since I wanted to just wipe out XP and use my entire 6 GB for Linux. I could have taken the option to shrink the existing partition or whatever, and then it pretty automagically created the various partitions Tom discussed. If you can get to that partitioning option you can probably tell it to do its thing with that existing second partition.

Not suggesting this is any better, just simpler for us beginners.