Fedora 10 Cambridge - Review & Tutorial - Page 3
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Installation - continued

Partitioning - continued

Fedora 10 offers several partitioning layout options:

Fedora partitioning options

Depending on your needs, using the first option (default layout) may be good enough for you. Personally, I always prefer to make a custom, manual choice, spending the extra three minutes to make sure everything fits.

If you choose the default layout regardless, you'll notice you have the option to encrypt the system. This is definitely a useful feature, especially for laptops.

Fedora default layout

Nevertheless, I'll go with custom:

Fedora custom layout

After you click Next, you'll have to create the partitions. It's the standard exercise, root, swap, home, any which you want. Please notice that you can choose to encrypt individually created partitions, again a very useful feature for laptops - or privacy-concerned users.

Fedora add partition

What I did not like was the fact that all three partitions were created as primary, even when I did not tick the Force to be a primary partition option. This means that if you intend to install multiple operating systems on your hard disk, you may want to consider using a dedicated partitioning tool like GParted to create the desired layout, as there can be only four primary partitions.

For more about partitions and mixed systems (dual boot, triple boot etc), you may want to read the following articles of mine:

Installing (K)ubuntu Linux - Full tutorial

Dual booting - Windows & Linux

Fedora partitions layout

You'll be warned a second time regarding the partitions before the changes are written to the hard disk.

Fedora second warning

The next step is to setup the bootloader (GRUB). A nice option is the ability to password-protect the menu against changes. For more about GRUB, you may want to read GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial.

Fedora GRUB options

After this step, the installation will, rather abruptly, begin, taking only about 10 minutes to complete (for the CD media). The DVD installer should take at least twice as long.

Fedora installing

After the system is installed, reboot.

Fedora installed

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