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Just installed Red Hat Linux 9 on a newly installed 80GB hard drive.
This drive is the 2nd drive in the system. The 1st drive contains Windows XP.
I setup a 500MB /swap, 1MB /boot and the remainder of the 80GB to root.

The instll seemed to go ok but when I reboot "GRUB" prints out and it just hangs.
I never get a chance to choose what OS I wish to boot to.

Any help is appreciated.

- Rolf.

rolf.kamp@verizon.net wrote:

> Just installed Red Hat Linux 9 on a newly installed 80GB hard drive.
> This drive is the 2nd drive in the system. The 1st drive contains Windows
> XP. I setup a 500MB /swap, 1MB /boot ...

Was that your choice? That seems too small to me, although I have stopped
creating separate /boot partitions so I can't make an immediate comparison.

Did you use automatic partitioning? It's a good idea, if only to get some
notion of typical partition sizes.

> and the remainder of the 80GB to
> root.
>
> The instll seemed to go ok but when I reboot "GRUB" prints out and it just
> hangs. I never get a chance to choose what OS I wish to boot to.
>
> Any help is appreciated.

You haven't provided any useful information. What is the layout of the
system, did you install the grub bootloader during or after the
installation, and what is in grub.conf?

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 15:42:41 -0700, rolf.kamp@verizon.net wrote:

> Just installed Red Hat Linux 9 on a newly installed 80GB hard drive.
> This drive is the 2nd drive in the system. The 1st drive contains Windows XP.
> I setup a 500MB /swap, 1MB /boot and the remainder of the 80GB to root.

I hope the 1MB /boot, mentioned above, is a mis-type. 1MB would hardly
hold a kernel, yet alone grub, and an initrd, and the rest of what goes in
/boot. I just checked my smallest ./boot, and with two alternate kernels,
it is 11.7MB. A boot partition an a drive that size should be at least
20MB, for breathing room. If you want to try other distros in the future,
50-100MB isn't out of line.

Having a / that is 79GB is downright silly. Give 6GB to /, maybe 20GB to
/home, and leave the rest unused for the present. Later, you can make
partitions for storing downloads, backing up, extra distros, if you want
to see what the other guys are doing.

If you have one big / that eats up your whole disk, what will you do, if
you need to reinstall, or later upgrade to a newer version? All will be
lost. With extra partitions, a new version can be installed as a parallel
system, that can be fine tuned, and when all is working well, the old
system can be erased, and the partition reused. Until that time, the old
system is your fall back, working OS. A separate /home partition may be
reused as is, with the new version, only the / partition is changed.

At this stage, I'd recommend repartitioning, and reinstalling, before you
find yourself boxed in.


> The instll seemed to go ok but when I reboot "GRUB" prints out and it just hangs.
> I never get a chance to choose what OS I wish to boot to.
>
> Any help is appreciated.
>
> - Rolf.

--
imotgm

imotgm wrote:

/ ...

> Having a / that is 79GB is downright silly. Give 6GB to /, maybe 20GB to
> /home, and leave the rest unused for the present.

No, that is unwise. A single large partition confers advantages to a system
that, like most systems, gradually fills up with data. And in an end-user
system, the fewer partitions the better.

Given the presence of the space and the fact that it is an end-user system,
the free space should certainly be allocated, and there's no point in
balkanizing the drive.

/ ...

> If you have one big / that eats up your whole disk, what will you do, if
> you need to reinstall, or later upgrade to a newer version? All will be
> lost.

Only if the OP doesn't back up his data, and if that's true, no number of
partitions will help him.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:27:32 +0000, imotgm wrote:

As an afterthought, I'd also recommend installing the 80GB drive as the
first drive, /dev/hda, and moving the Windows drive to /dev/hdb, or
/dev/hdc. That way, grub is installed on the Linux drive's MBR, and any
reinstall or repair of Windows will not overwrite grub.

To do the above, first remove the 80GB drive, and from the windows install
cd, enter a console, and enter;

fixmbr <Enter>

then reboot, to make sure Windows boots normally.

Shut down, and make sure the 80GB drive is jumpered to master, and that
the Windows disk is jumpered to slave, if it is to be attached to the same
cable as the 80GB disk. Reconnect the drives, and then start the Linux
installation.

When the installation of Linux is complete, and you can boot to it, as
root, edit /boot/grub/grub.conf so the Windows stanza looks like;

title windows
root (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

if the grub installation didn't already.

--
imotgm

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:07:02 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:

> imotgm wrote:
>
> / ...
>
>> Having a / that is 79GB is downright silly. Give 6GB to /, maybe 20GB to
>> /home, and leave the rest unused for the present.
>
> No, that is unwise. A single large partition confers advantages to a system
> that, like most systems, gradually fills up with data. And in an end-user
> system, the fewer partitions the better.

I've heard this from you before, Paul, and it's still a lousy idea. It's
the Windows way.

> Given the presence of the space and the fact that it is an end-user
> system, the free space should certainly be allocated, and there's no
> point in balkanizing the drive.
>
> / ...
>
>> If you have one big / that eats up your whole disk, what will you do,
>> if you need to reinstall, or later upgrade to a newer version? All will
>> be lost.
>
> Only if the OP doesn't back up his data, and if that's true, no number
> of partitions will help him.

And where does he back up to, 79GB worth of CD's? At least with a few
extra partitions, there's room to move things about, and save backups to
separate partitions. An extra drive just for backups is nice, but odds are
the OP does not have one. Tape backups for home use basically suck, and
the OP most likely does not have that either. Time and experience will let
the OP learn what is best for him, in the long run, but he is just
starting out, and what I've suggested is practical for a home system, for
a beginner. Critical documents can be backed up to CD's, but large volumes
of down loaded mp3s and non critical niceties can safely be put on a
partition that will not be removed by an upgrade.

--
imotgm

imotgm wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:27:32 +0000, imotgm wrote:
>
> As an afterthought, I'd also recommend installing the 80GB drive as the
> first drive, /dev/hda, and moving the Windows drive to /dev/hdb, or
> /dev/hdc.

Reasonable, except this won't work. Windows must be on the primary drive. I
hope the OP has the sense not to embark on your project.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

imotgm wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:07:02 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:
>
>> imotgm wrote:
>>
>> / ...
>>
>>> Having a / that is 79GB is downright silly. Give 6GB to /, maybe 20GB to
>>> /home, and leave the rest unused for the present.
>>
>> No, that is unwise. A single large partition confers advantages to a
>> system that, like most systems, gradually fills up with data. And in an
>> end-user system, the fewer partitions the better.
>
> I've heard this from you before, Paul, and it's still a lousy idea. It's
> the Windows way.

No, it is the common-sense way. Fewer partitions create a more reliable
system, which statistically speaking will fail *after* one with many
partitions, for reasons that should be obvious.

Multiple drives? My argument doesn't apply. Multiple users, especially with
some inexperienced ones? My argument doesn't apply. Single user, single
drive? The fewest practical number of partitions.

>> Given the presence of the space and the fact that it is an end-user
>> system, the free space should certainly be allocated, and there's no
>> point in balkanizing the drive.
>>
>> / ...
>>
>>> If you have one big / that eats up your whole disk, what will you do,
>>> if you need to reinstall, or later upgrade to a newer version? All will
>>> be lost.
>>
>> Only if the OP doesn't back up his data, and if that's true, no number
>> of partitions will help him.
>
> And where does he back up to, 79GB worth of CD's?

A non-argument. The OP must back up. If he puts a copy of important data on
the same drive, he has not backed up. Even you must realize this.

> At least with a few
> extra partitions, there's room to move things about, and save backups to
> separate partitions.

I was hoping you were brigher than this. The backup is against the
possibility that the hard drive might fail. And your argument applies
equally well (or poorly) to a spare directory as to a spare partition.

> An extra drive just for backups is nice, but odds are
> the OP does not have one.

Another non-argument, because the OP should not engage in the fantasy that
multiple copies on one drive constitute a backup.

> Tape backups for home use basically suck, and
> the OP most likely does not have that either.

Do you actually have an argument against backing up, or will the remainder
of your post continue in this vein? He should back up, and this is not an
argument for multiple partitions. Even given the brainlessness of this
scheme, he could back up to separate directories.

> Time and experience will let
> the OP learn what is best for him,

Yes, and those with thirty years of experience are happy to help him avoid
your advice, like your other post in this thread suggesting that the
Windows drive should be moved to hdb or hdc (to the very inexperienced:
this doesn't work). I hope to God the OP doesn't have the time or
inclination to discover for himself what you don't know.

> in the long run, but he is just
> starting out, and what I've suggested is practical for a home system, for
> a beginner.

That is exactly the sort of user who benefits from the simplest
configuration, and the most reliable.

> Critical documents can be backed up to CD's, but large volumes
> of down loaded mp3s and non critical niceties can safely be put on a
> partition that will not be removed by an upgrade.

And they can be moved to a spare directory. Your argument is not an
argument. Partitions should be assessed for their drawbacks as well as
their advantages. Inevitably, nature acting as she does, one partition ends
up with unused space that is desperately needed on another, and a system
with a lot of partitions fails before one with fewer.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 19:27:21 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:

> imotgm wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 23:27:32 +0000, imotgm wrote:
>>
>> As an afterthought, I'd also recommend installing the 80GB drive as the
>> first drive, /dev/hda, and moving the Windows drive to /dev/hdb, or
>> /dev/hdc.
>
> Reasonable, except this won't work. Windows must be on the primary drive. I
> hope the OP has the sense not to embark on your project.

Again, You are talking out of your ass. Not only will it work, it has been
working on all my computers since I first tried it with Suse 7.2 and
Win2K. I presently boot Windows 98SE and Win2K from hde without issues. I
can also boot Windows from hdc or hdg if I choose.

My present Windows stanza from /grub/menu.lst;

title Windows E
root (hd2,0)
map (hd2) (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd2)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I suppose I'll have to destroy a perfectly good system, because you
proclaim it cannot exist. For a guy with your background, your ignorance
is appalling.

--
imotgm

"imotgm" <imotgm_REMOVE@invalid-yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsan.2004.08.27.02.30.21.810043@invalid-yahoo.com...
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2004 17:07:02 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:
>
> > imotgm wrote:
> >
> > / ...
> >
> >> Having a / that is 79GB is downright silly. Give 6GB to /, maybe 20GB
to
> >> /home, and leave the rest unused for the present.
> >
> > No, that is unwise. A single large partition confers advantages to a
system
> > that, like most systems, gradually fills up with data. And in an
end-user
> > system, the fewer partitions the better.
>
> I've heard this from you before, Paul, and it's still a lousy idea. It's
> the Windows way.

No, it's the experienced and flexible Linux installation way. Really: having
to re-partition your disk because your log files are suddenly larger, or a
package moved from /var to /home in the default setup, or you need more
things in /usr/local than you anticipated, or you've only got a spare Gig to
recompile kernels in but neither of your available partitions has that much
space and similar problems really sucks goat rocks to do.

Use extra partitions only when compelled to by needing distinct partitions
for specific reasons, such as mount /var/spool with the "noatime" option to
speed the handling of your NNTP spool, or setting aside a honking disk of
/var/ftp to handle your FTP server space and making it reiserfs because some
foolish mortal dumps 20,000 files in one directory.

> > Given the presence of the space and the fact that it is an end-user
> > system, the free space should certainly be allocated, and there's no
> > point in balkanizing the drive.
> >
> > / ...
> >
> >> If you have one big / that eats up your whole disk, what will you do,
> >> if you need to reinstall, or later upgrade to a newer version? All will
> >> be lost.
> >
> > Only if the OP doesn't back up his data, and if that's true, no number
> > of partitions will help him.
>
> And where does he back up to, 79GB worth of CD's? At least with a few
> extra partitions, there's room to move things about, and save backups to
> separate partitions. An extra drive just for backups is nice, but odds are
> the OP does not have one. Tape backups for home use basically suck, and

That's senseless. He can't back up 79 GB without tapes or a separate drive
anyway. Putting your system backup on another partition of the same drive is
silly.

You backup the core configuration files to *another* machine with some spare
space, and can do the reverse if needed.

> the OP most likely does not have that either. Time and experience will let
> the OP learn what is best for him, in the long run, but he is just
> starting out, and what I've suggested is practical for a home system, for
> a beginner. Critical documents can be backed up to CD's, but large volumes
> of down loaded mp3s and non critical niceties can safely be put on a
> partition that will not be removed by an upgrade.

Now, that's potentially reasonable. But few upgrades these days blow away
the old files or partitions, *unless you accidentally made your partitions
the wrong size!*. Then you have to re-partition, which *really* puts your
old data at risk.