Partitions

[2serious]

I'm just starting to learn LINUX; got so much advice, I thought I'd go with someone I had a bit of faith in, the 'Internet Tourbus' folk. Turns out I was wrong, The No BS Guide to Red Hat LINUX 6 , was not a great option, at least for me. The book is both somewhat outmoded, and very lite on information. I got LINUX installed okay, I guess, but I can't learn enough from the book to troubleshoot my problems. Also, there were some rather vague instructions that caused me problems. The first of these is how I partitioned my drive. I need to keep Win '98 running on my sys, so I can manage basic computing while I learn LINUX, so partioning my 14Gb drive seemed ideal. (This had been one of my major worries about switching to LINUX: what would I do about my computing needs while I'm learning a new OS?) However, when I partitioned my drive, I wasn't entirely sure how large each section should be, and I sized my DOS partition to roughly the existing used memory. I'd cleaned alot off my drive before I installed LINUX and archived alot to disks, so now I have Windows crunched into four gigs. This doesn't leave me much room to expand in the Windows side of the partition; I'm afraid I'll try to download something, one of these days, and I''l be out of memory. I'm pretty sure partitions don't expand on their own as needed, so that leaves doing it manually. Originally I partioned using a FIPS utility on my Red Hat disk, which worked fine, but that is intended to be used to split an existing DOS partition, and so, not entirely useful at this point. Can someone(s) please suggest a next course of action?

[Dun'kalis]

GNU Parted or Ranish may do what you want.

I also believe Red Hat has a GUI tool, try that.

[BigFatJoe]

no, partitions don't resize themselves since this would go directly against the idea of partitions.

now, you need to figure out which filesystem you have (ext2,ext3, reiserfs, etc.) Then you can do a google search for something like "resize ext2" or something.

same thing for the window's partition. you need to figure out the file-system. if its ntfs, this looks good.
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html

i recommend staying away from gui programs - they often dont allow the kind of control that is needed.

also, BACKUP. this should be so obvious I shouldnt be mentioning it.

[2serious]

I haven't really got anything invested in my current LINUX install. I mean I've poked around a bit, but there's nothing new there, and not even any users except the root. Is there any way I can just wipe out the install, partitions included and re-install with better partitions? If there is, that seems really simple. Also, I know 'best' is an open question, but is Red Hat v6 a good enough version for me to use as a learning tool? If not, I might as well install a more newbie-friendly version. Suggestions? Also, are there any especially good 'teach-yourself' reference books for LINUX/UNIX?

[BigFatJoe]

if you want to remove your current install, just boot a linux or windows boot disk and repartition your HD. then run the linux installation again.

As far as help, go and google b/c
help = (#distros)^(#distro's)

and there are a lot of distro's. :D

i'm not going to recommned/suggest anything. but maybe you should go and poke around www.debian.org if you like it, go ahead and try it. ;)