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Before Installing Linux

• Need to partition your disk(s)
• Linux works best with
  • swap partition of 16 MB to about twice DRAM size
  • ext2 (extended 2) root partition of >= 200 MB
  • Other partitions it can ignore or mount...
• Standardly partition using fdisk
• Can repartition changing size of a DOS partition
  • Nice if you want to keep pre-installed versions of DOS and/or Windows
  • Repartition is done by
    1. Run chkdsk to clean-up DOS partition
    2. Use defrag to pack files at the front of the partition
    3. Run fips to adjust the partition table, hopefully without clobering data...
• but first backup anything important!