I decided it's (finally) time to make my eee a debian/WinXP dual boot. I have Windows already installed and chose to sacrifice most of an existing data partition for debian. Here's how the partitions look like in the debian installer:
SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 2.0 GB TE USB
#1 2.0 GB fat16
SCSI5 (0,0,0) (sdc) - 160.0 GB ATA ST9160314AS
#1 prmiary 77.4 GB B ntfs
pri/log 77.4 GB FREE SPACE
#3 prmiary 5.2 GB fat32
#4 primary 49.4 MB
From what I read the last two partitions are ASUS' hidden recovery partitions for reinstalling windows when the time comes. I have also read, that there's a general 4 primary partitions limit and I need at least 2 primary partitions (/ and swap) for my debian install.
The limit is why (I believe), when I create one partition on the FREE SPACE, the rest of it is described as 'unusable' by the installer.
What's the best thing to do now? I wouldn't want to lose the recovery partitions (they will come in handy eventually, creating your own USB bootable win image is a pain, and most of the firmware is useful) and I definately wouldn't like to give up mu first non-server debian use.
Is there any workaround? Am I missing a point somewhere along the way?
Plus, if I can be choosy I'd still like to have a small fat32 partition for swapping data between systems if necessary