At this stage, you should decide which hard drive partition you wish to install the ALT Linux 2.3 distribution in. If the hard drive is empty, or if the existing operating system takes up all the space on the disk, disk space will have to be re-defined.
The results of re-distributing disk space can be irreversible, and that is why this procedure may seem very unpleasant and frightening to inexperienced users. Fortunately, it is made much simpler by the installation program, and still, before taking any actions you should spend a little time on reading this section of the manual.
Depending on the configuration of your hard disk, several options are available:
Disk partitioning is run automatically, you will not be asked any questions.
This option means that all existing partitions and data will be deleted from the disk and replaced by a new system. Be careful, because there is no turning back after you confirm this choice.
If one or several existing Linux partitions are found, they may be used for the installation of a new operating system.
In this case, the installation program will offer you to use the “Direct Hard Drive Partition Management Interface”.
If you wish to install several operating systems on a single computer, it is recommended to read the section on “loading several operating systems” from the “System Setup and Administration” chapter first.