Installing Kali with XP (Dual boot)

[sNova]

HI,
I have a laptop with XP installed.My hard disk size is 150GB. Drive C contains XP's installation files and my installed program files,D is empty and E,F contains my data.Now I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty.How should I do it? I don't want my files and XP to change in any way.When I start my system I should be able to start XP or Kali as per my requirement.
I really don't know what to do.I am new to debian environment.Please can anybody tell me how do I install Kali?
very detailed info(step by step) will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

[BTK]

my advice...... download virtual box simulate your hard drive setup and have a play around

if you cba with that

delete all the partitions you are not using with gparted in kali live mode. then during the kali installation select guided use largest free space and follow the setup.

im sure there's a billion videos on youtube to help you better understand

[maverik35]

Need to download gparted, re-create the D partition as an ext4 filesystem partition. THen you are ready to go, one more thing, you need another partition, the swap one, so try to create the D partition as an extended one, then within the new extended partition, create 2 (kali and swap).

Swap is about 2gb and the rest for the other partition (kali).

I do not recommend VM's.

[daedalus1776]

my advice...... download virtual box simulate your hard drive setup and have a play around

If you just want to have a bit of a play, this is definitely the way to go. That way you won't be making any real changes to your HDD and you can just delete it when you're done. Of course, you'll want to have enough RAM to run two Operating Systems at the same time.

delete all the partitions you are not using with gparted in kali live mode. then during the kali installation select guided use largest free space and follow the setup.

Yeah that'll do the trick.

Need to download gparted

Not if you just live boot from Kali as BTK suggested.

you need another partition, the swap one, so try to create the D partition as an extended one, then within the new extended partition, create 2 (kali and swap).

This is correct. You will need to make a swap partition and an ext3 partition for kali, and mbr can only handle four primary partitions, so you'll need to make an extended partition containing two logical partitions. Sounds a little complicated, but do some research into MBR partitions and it will all make sense.

Swap is about 2gb and the rest for the other partition (kali).

Your swap size really depends on how much RAM your computer has and how much of that RAM you expect to be using while booted into Kali. In saying that, 2gb is usually a pretty standard amount, so if you're not sure, go with that.

I do not recommend VM's.

I don't want this to get off topic, but can I ask why?

[maverik35]

Mr daedlus, I'll be glad to exchange points of view as to all those replies to each and every single post of mine.

As you posted before, you do not want to get off topic, I totally agree with such issue. But I consider this time, those statements from you need to be cleared out.

I quote : Need to download gparted. If you read carefully the sNova post it clearly states he wants to install Kali in a 30gb empty partition, and I quote: "I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty". So the correct answer is to use that partition but need to be a ext4 filesystem. You can certainly use the fdisk comand in text mode or gparted. There could be many many many suggestions, but the man is stating it quite clear: "I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty". The man is noty asking for suggestions or any other ways to use kali.

Next reply: It might sound complicated, but you certainly said it: "Sounds little.....", "Sounds", "Looks", It is not. Let the man keep his way into learning linux. It is not complicated. He has a tons of help here and other forums to clear out his doubts. It might "Sound" complicated, but if there is other way, let me know. I do not know any other way to do it according to what he wants.

Next reply: You need to read a little more and I want to say this: Back in the 90's the machines came with 256, 512, and some even with 512+256 modules. That made necessary to have swap space to make proccesses be able to run. So the swap space had to be calculated based on aprox. 2 or 2.5 times the RAM size. Now a days, there are linux distros which will run with 128Mb ram like puppy linux and some others. The debian distros need about 512Mb ram to run.
Let me give this example: I have a PC or Laptop with 4gb ram, so you are saying that I need at least 8Gb Swap??????..I only need 2gb, since with that amount of ram, I can run all programs I need and swap will be used to "store" some data when for exmple the machines enter into hybernation.
The today linux distros have a great memory administration. So I do not agree with your statement at all. Your concept about swap is deprecated.

Next reply: "Why not VM's"..One issue to start with: Can you use pci wifi in VM's?..Can you make copy/paste among VM's natively? Can you make copy/paste between Hos and guest machines?..Not always, and to allways works. As to the pci wifi, you cannot use it. If you want to use it as a front-end, it is fine, but the more proccesses you load in it, the more overhead you put in your host machine, it will lag it performance. I've seen people using some partitions : /, /home/, /tmp, /usr and it just wont work due to the /usr partition.
So If it not 100%, not recommended, a very personal point of view. I rather use a partition instead of VM's. I know it is 100%.

Again, teh man wants to install and i again quote: I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty
He evens highlighted it.

[daedalus1776]

I quote : Need to download gparted. If you read carefully the sNova post it clearly states he wants to install Kali in a 30gb empty partition, and I quote: "I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty". So the correct answer is to use that partition but need to be a ext4 filesystem. You can certainly use the fdisk comand in text mode or gparted. There could be many many many suggestions, but the man is stating it quite clear: "I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty". The man is noty asking for suggestions or any other ways to use kali.

I was merely stating that he COULD use Kali to do this. You can quite simply format a partition to ext4 during the kali installation.He doesn't HAVE to use gparted, but he is more than welcome to.

Next reply: It might sound complicated, but you certainly said it: "Sounds little.....", "Sounds", "Looks", It is not. Let the man keep his way into learning linux. It is not complicated. He has a tons of help here and other forums to clear out his doubts. It might "Sound" complicated, but if there is other way, let me know. I do not know any other way to do it according to what he wants.

I was stating that my explanation of how MBR partitions work might sound confusing. I actually encouraged him to do some research and it would make sense. At no point did I discourage him from learning.

Next reply: You need to read a little more and I want to say this: Back in the 90's the machines came with 256, 512, and some even with 512+256 modules. That made necessary to have swap space to make proccesses be able to run. So the swap space had to be calculated based on aprox. 2 or 2.5 times the RAM size. Now a days, there are linux distros which will run with 128Mb ram like puppy linux and some others. The debian distros need about 512Mb ram to run.
Let me give this example: I have a PC or Laptop with 4gb ram, so you are saying that I need at least 8Gb Swap??????..I only need 2gb, since with that amount of ram, I can run all programs I need and swap will be used to "store" some data when for exmple the machines enter into hybernation.
The today linux distros have a great memory administration. So I do not agree with your statement at all. Your concept about swap is deprecated.

At no point did I EVER state that he needed double the RAM size as his swap. You made that assumption. I said that depending on how much RAM you have and the kind of work you expect to be doing, you can figure out how much swap space you will need. For instance, you would barely need any swap if you had 16Gb of RAM and were only ever going to use, say 2Gb of memory while booted into your OS.

Next reply: "Why not VM's"..One issue to start with: Can you use pci wifi in VM's?..Can you make copy/paste among VM's natively? Can you make copy/paste between Hos and guest machines?..Not always, and to allways works. As to the pci wifi, you cannot use it. If you want to use it as a front-end, it is fine, but the more proccesses you load in it, the more overhead you put in your host machine, it will lag it performance. I've seen people using some partitions : /, /home/, /tmp, /usr and it just wont work due to the /usr partition.
So If it not 100%, not recommended, a very personal point of view. I rather use a partition instead of VM's. I know it is 100%.

I appreciate your opinion and I can agree with it. However I stated in my post that if he just wants to mess around with Kali, to see how it works, then a VM is a good idea as you're not making any permanent changes. I too much prefer installing an OS locally, but I find it helpful to have a play in a VM first to see if it is the OS for me, and then do a HDD install. Purely a personal preference

Again, teh man wants to install and i again quote: I want to install Kali in drive D(size 30GB) which is already empty
He evens highlighted it.

I am aware of this.

I just want to point out that at no point was I attacking you, or your suggestions. I was offering my own suggestions to help the OP out. You've made assumptions based on my post and vilified me for it. I know what I'm talking about, as clearly you do too. There's no need to have a competition over it.

[maverik35]

Mr Daedalus, after reading your last post (follow-up to my answer), I see you are a little upset, if in any way I made you feel unconfortable with my reply, I issue this public apology to you.

It is no my intention to discuss basic linux issues, since they are basics. I have my points of view and concepts, and by no mean, I will try to impose them. I have my concepts quite clear and I'm very certain of them.

I'm very sorry if I made you fell upset .

I'm here to help but overall, to learn.

Good luck and keep up your excellent work in the forums.

[daedalus1776]

No worries Maverik, I do respect your work here in the forums.

Regardless of differing views or opinions; I hope the OP gets this sorted.