GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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19 Apr 2005

Standard install. Choose boot media with F12 on boot. F2 to edit the BIOS, needed for 2.4 kernel (no support for AHCI so select Combination under Drive). MS/Windows XP already installed, so use the Debian GNU/Linux installer to reduce the NTFS partition size, but keep it, and repartition the remainder, ending up with a dual boot machine.

Install: lang=English, location=Australia, kb=American English, network through DHCP, hostname=belinos, resize NT partition and partition remainder as a desktop, write partition changes, install grub, reboot.

The repartitioning of the pre-existing MS/Windows NTFS partition is now handled directly by the Debian GNU/Linux installer. At the partition step select:

  \#2 primary 159.9GB ntfs

We want to keep this but make it smaller. Choose the size (40GB) and write changes to disk. Then partition the new free space as a Desktop Machine.

Default Desktop partition was:

/	7G	sda3
/home	110G	sda6
swap	2.8G	sda5

Grub automatically noticed MS/Windows XP and added an appropriate entry for booting.

Root passwd, user account, apt install.

Install sudo for wajig.

Package installs: exim4 (smarthost with no local delivery).

StartX (choosing defaults for setup) has no problems (initially vesa, then install the non-free fglrx driver).

Install kernel-image-2.6.11-1-686-smp. Set BIOS back to AHCI and in /etc/fstab change the /dev/hda to /dev/sda. Tell Grub to boot from /dev/sda3:

  \# kopt_2_6=root=/dev/sda3 ro

With the BIOS back to AHCI we can now boot MS/Windows XP and GNU/Linux.