In most cases, YaST proposes a reasonable partitioning scheme that can be accepted without change. YaST can also be used to customize the partitioning, but only experienced users should change partitioning.

When you select the Partitioning for the first time, the YaST partitioning dialog displays the proposed partition settings. To accept these settings, click Accept Proposal.

To make small changes in the proposal, select Base Partition Setup on This Proposal and adjust partitioning in the next dialog. For a completely different partitioning, select Create Custom Partition Setup. In the next dialog, choose a specific disk to partition or Custom Partitioning if you want to have access to all disks. For more information about custom partitioning, refer to Section 8.5.5, “Using the YaST Partitioner”the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server documentation.

The partitioning scheme proposed should have sufficient disk space. If implementing your own partitioning scheme, consider an absolute minimum of 5 GB for the system partition. At least 10 GB are recommended. Personal data, such as documents, music files, and images, require additional space.

Resizing a Windows Partition

If a hard disk containing a Windows FAT or NTFS partition is selected as the installation target, YaST offers to delete or shrink this partition. This functionality is especially useful if the selected hard disk contains only one Windows partition that covers the entire hard disk (see Figure 3.1, “Possible Options for Windows Partitions”).

Figure 3.1. Possible Options for Windows Partitions

If you select Delete Windows Completely, the Windows partition is marked for deletion and the space is used for the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise.

	Deleting Windows
If you delete Windows, all data will be lost beyond recovery as soon as the formatting starts.

To Shrink the Windows partition, you need to interrupt the installation and boot Windows to prepare before shrinking it. For all Windows file systems, proceed as follows:

1. Deactivate a Virtual Memory file, if there is one.

2. Run scandisk.

3. Run defrag.

After these preparations, restart the SUSE Linux Enterprise installation. When you turn to the Linux partitioning setup, select Shrink Windows Partition. After a quick check of the partition, YaST opens a dialog with a suggestion for resizing the Windows partition.

Figure 3.2. Resizing the Windows Partition

The first bar graph shows how much disk space is currently occupied by Windows and how much space is still available. The second bar graph shows how the space would be distributed after the resizing, according to YaST's current proposal. See Figure 3.2, “Resizing the Windows Partition”. To change the proposed settings use the slider or the input fields to change the partition sizing.

If you leave this dialog by selecting Next, the settings are stored and you are returned to the previous dialog. The actual resizing takes place later, before the hard disk is formatted.

	Writing to NTFS Partitions
By default, the Windows versions NT, 2000, and XP use the NTFS file system. SUSE Linux Enterprise includes basic write access support to the NTFS file system, but this feature has limited functionality. This means you can read your Windows files from Linux or overwrite them, but you cannot extend or remove them.

SUSE Linux Enterprise contains a number of software packages for various application purposes. Click Software in the suggestion window to start the software selection and modify the installation scope according to your needs. Select your pattern from the list in the middle and see the description in the right part of the window. Each pattern contains a number of software packages needed for specific functions (e.g. Multimedia or Office software). For a more detailed selection based on software packages to install, select Details to switch to the YaST Software Manager. See Figure 3.3, “Installing and Removing Software with the YaST Software Manager”.

Figure 3.3. Installing and Removing Software with the YaST Software Manager

You can also install additional software packages or remove software packages from your system at any time later. For more information, refer to Section 8.3.1, “Installing and Removing Software”.

To change the system language or to configure support for secondary languages, select Language. Select a language from the list. The primary language is used as the system language. Choose a secondary languages to be able to switch to one of these languages at any time without having to install additional packages. .