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[LUG] Showing some distros

 

Dear All

I am having 3 friends in tonight to look at my Ubuntu (6.06)  and Kubuntu set up. It would be nice to install something else before their very eyes. I could add a distro to my laptop, which shows:

01 /dev/sda1 fat16    78.41MB 0.03MB 78.44MB (used 7.58GB)
02 /dev/sda2 ntfs        9.77GB 78.44MB 9.84GB
03 /dev/sda3 extended 60.13GB 9.84GB 69.97GB (used 9.04GB)
04 /dev/sda5 ext3        57.66GB 9.84GB 67.50GB
05 /dev/sda6 linux-swap 2.47GB 67.50GB 69.97GB
06 /dev/sda4 fat32     3.15GB 69.97GB 73.12GB DellRestore (used 2.50GB)
07 /dev/sda7-1 free 7.84MB 73.12GB 73.13GB

If I add, say Mandriva 2007 or openSuse10.2, how should I respond to the partition dialogue, if I have a choice? Is repartitioning sda5 likely to cause problems for the existing swap file partition? It might also be a useful task to upgrade 6.06 to 6.10 to show how easy it is. However, I need guidance on how to do this, preferably in the GUI (both for me and for my friends!).

I also have an old Win2000 Professional machine with 38GB. Though I have defragmented the few files left on it, it seems to have a significant wadge of system files slightly more than half way in the disc (and it did not reorganise the data files to occupy contiguous space next to the main block of system files at the beginning of the disc). Will I need to ONLY use the empty space or can I safely reformat a larger block of disc space for a Linux distro? Incidentally the defragmenter left some system files with fragments, in one case 19 and another 22, the rest 2. I could use DOS to copy, save with a new name, delete and rename if this is a good idea. Similarly the data files. I could only do this with one of these files in the GUI.

I also have an old laptop with Me on it and would like to set my 12 year old very sceptical daughter up with a useful distro that was quick in action and could get her on to bebo and preferably access to educational software! Would DSL be a good choice? This one would be Linux only!

Finally, what would be the best way to dump Windows on two of my machines? My laptop (currently with XP dual booted with Ubuntu) seems the best option, leaving one desktop in my office dual booted (the one I write about above).

Many thanks

james kilty
http://www.kilty.demon.co.uk

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