[KLUG Members] RE: 2000 and Linux

[Randall Perry]

Sorry about the slow response, but I don't get to read through all of my
email on a regular basis-and I get the digested version to boot.  

Anyway, regarding 2k and Linux, I suggest to multiboot.  This allows you
to run a whatever distro of Linux you want (and a real distro). I would
not suggest taking NTFS (assuming NTFS 5) off of the Win2000 box for
performance, quota, security features.  

I have a notebook that multiboots Windows2000 Server and Caldera 3.1.  I
partitioned up the drive as follows:
7.82 Gb-NTFS 5  		Windows2000
1.92 Gb-Ext2		Caldera Linux 3.1 (2.4kernel)
170 Mb -swap		Linux Swap
1.34 Gb- Fat		Common Data partition for use in Linux and 2000

My partition sizes are not quite ideal, but you get the gist of it.  I
like having a common partition for data when possible.  I remember
multibooting OS/Warp, WinNT 4.0 using IBM's bootmanager that took a 3Mb
partition so had to drop the data part to have Win95 (MS great way of
only having 4 primary partitions).

BTW, I remember reading a post on Win95 migration...
If you don't want to have to acquire Ghost or other cloning software, do
what works for me: Just piggyback the drive in the system off the
secondary channel (IDE only will talk to a single device a cable at one
time).  In Win9x you can fdisk and then format.  Go to Explorer (the
FileManager iteration) and make sure you are viewing Hidden/System
files.  Highlight everything (alt-a) and drag to the new drive to copy.
(this also copies all system files)

You might want to make sure that you select the Windows directory
seperate so that you can deselect the swap file.  The benefit of copying
in this manner is 32 disk access (versus DOS) and retention of file
attributes (unlike Linux manner).  A benefit over the cloning utilities
is that when copying files they are automatically packed while cloning
will retain fragmented files.

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Randall Perry
domain logic, Senior Consultant
National Student Resources, CTO (a new nonprofit so no money but good
people and a nice title)