Q I bought a copy of your Get Started With Fedora special and followed the instructions for installing the software, but I have run into a problem. I have Windows XP installed, and partitioned my hard drive with Partition Magic to give 10GB of hard disk space to Linux. The CD runs OK until I get to step six of the installation guide in the mag, and then it keeps coming back telling me it cannot install. I told Partition Magic that I wanted to install Linux - do I have to chop that partition into pieces to install the three directories that I need?
A Linux partitions created with Partition Magic can sometimes be problematic. Many distros' installers have an option to resize your Windows partition and create the Linux partitions. When this is an option, use it. Fedora does not give you this choice so the best approach is to use Partition Magic to resize your Windows partition, as you have already done, but leave the space for Linux empty. To go ahead, simply delete the Linux partition(s) you have already created. Then run the Fedora installer and select Use Free Space at this point. The installer will take care of creating the partitions it needs in the empty space you have left. The important point to remember is that the free space it refers to is unpartitioned space on the disk, not free space within an existing partition.