New to Linux - RAID installation

[ViperLancer]

Hi all, this will be my first Linux install, and while I think I'm pretty good with computers, I'm somewhat lost here. Any help/suggestions is appreciated.

I'm trying to install Linux onto my RAID (fakeRAID?) array (Gigabyte EP45-UD3L, Intel ICH10R chipset). I have a pair of RAID-0 arrays on it, each with 2x HDD's. I can't wipe it to use the Linux software RAID (don't yet know how anyways) as I have Windows XP installed on it and am not willing to wipe that.

I found this article on Ubuntu 9.04 that I hoped would be close enough, as I haven't found a walkthrough on Kubuntu 10.04 (is there one?).
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto

I've tried following that article, but I can't seem to find GPart (which I am slightly familiar with), or figure out the Grub or dmraid stuff (can't even get them started). I've also read about using mdadm instead of dmraid, but don't know the difference.

Can somebody help point me in the right direction on how to get Linux installed on this RAID?

[oshunluvr]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Personally - I think you're in for a heap of work. I won't bore you with the list of reasons not to use fake raid and why linux raid is so much better.

1- The Howto you found has more information than you'll get anywhere else. I doubt there are any changes to the procedure from 9.10 to 10.04.

2- Why the author of that page referred to Gparted as Gpart is beyond me. Likely just a typo.

3- It seems you're just trying to get you're feet wet with linux? Rather than go through all this rigmarole to get linux installed on an unsafe RAID and risk your XP install, how about installing VirtualBox in windows and installing Kubuntu there? Or, since it seems you're not broke ( 4 HD's? Welcome to the RAID club! ), buy a high performance USB thumb drive and install Kubuntu to it. I can recommend the Patriot Xporter XT.

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Personally - I think you're in for a heap of work.

Agreed. But, I am willing to, as I really want to learn Linux well enough to eventually make it my primary OS. Still will have to keep Windows as I'm a technician and need to be able to mess with it (for support purposes, if nothing else).

I won't bore you with the list of reasons not to use fake raid and why linux raid is so much better.

Actually, I would be interested to hear/read more about this. From what I've read so far, there simply is no performance gain using fakeRAID than softRAID in Linux, it's a bit harder to set up, and it would present an issue on dual-boot PC's for Windows. Am I right, and did I miss anything?

[dibl]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Here's more about software RAID, FYI: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=408461

http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Software-RAID-HOWTO.html

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

1- The Howto you found has more information than you'll get anywhere else. I doubt there are any changes to the procedure from 9.10 to 10.04.

2- Why the author of that page referred to Gparted as Gpart is beyond me. Likely just a typo.

3- It seems you're just trying to get you're feet wet with linux? Rather than go through all this rigmarole to get linux installed on an unsafe RAID and risk your XP install, how about installing VirtualBox in windows and installing Kubuntu there? Or, since it seems you're not broke ( 4 HD's? Welcome to the RAID club! ), buy a high performance USB thumb drive and install Kubuntu to it. I can recommend the Patriot Xporter XT.

1 - Glad to know the HowTo is good info.
2 - So when searching for a program in Linux, do I have to type the WHOLE name? So Gparted will find it but Gpart won't?
3a - Correct, I'm just getting into the kiddie pool with Linux, but I eventually do want to go deep-sea diving into it. I'm very good with Windows, but know very well that Linux is a superior OS in many ways.
3b - I could install it into a virtual box, but the issue with that would be my Windows XP OS is only 32-bit, and I want to install 64-bit Kubuntu. Already tried the virtual machine method and it wouldn't take a 64-bit OS in it.
3c - Technically, I am broke (frequently less than $100 in my account). But since my profession (and one of my hobbies) is working with PC's, I've picked up a few HDD's (for both performance and backup). Actually, 5 of them (2xWD 320-GB, 2xHitachi 1TB,1xHitachi 2TB), but only 4 are in the 2 RAIDs and Linux sees the 5th just fine (and don't want to look like I'm bragging), so didn't mention it. Plus, the 2x 320's were a gift from an old boss, I bought the rest 1 at a time, the 1TB's on sale for $60 each, the 2TB for $110 (from $170). Thanks for the welcome.
What do you mean high-performance flash drive? I've got a 4 GB PNY Attache flash drive that eventually I do want to throw Linux onto to help me work on other PC's. I'll look at your Xporter, though.

Any more thoughts/suggestions?

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Personally - I think you're in for a heap of work.

Agreed. But, I am willing to, as I really want to learn Linux well enough to eventually make it my primary OS. Still will have to keep Windows as I'm a technician and need to be able to mess with it (for support purposes, if nothing else).

I won't bore you with the list of reasons not to use fake raid and why linux raid is so much better.

Actually, I would be interested to hear/read more about this. From what I've read so far, there simply is no performance gain using fakeRAID than softRAID in Linux, it's a bit harder to set up, and it would present an issue on dual-boot PC's for Windows. Am I right, and did I miss anything?

Oh yes, and I forgot the compatibility issue in case hardware fails. With any hardware RAID, you have to replace it using identical or perfectly compatible hardware. But with a Linux softRAID, that is not the case, correct?

[oshunluvr]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Oh yes, and I forgot the compatibility issue in case hardware fails. With any hardware RAID, you have to replace it using identical or perfectly compatible hardware. But with a Linux softRAID, that is not the case, correct?

Exactly and point one in the reasons to use softraid over fake raid. In the real world I doubt you'd have much trouble finding another mobo with the ich10 chipset - at least for a couple of years.

I real issue in your case is the basic incompatibility of the two RAID systems. FakeRAID for windows and softRAID for linux.

Talking points:
1. Since you're just beginning with linux, why not just install linux to that 5th drive and to a single partition? Kubuntu and all the trimmings will take well less than 12gb until you start doing VirtualBox or VM Ware machines. Once you're ready for more - your have some experience and you'll not risk your windows install. Kubuntu can be install in less than 30 minutes in most cases, so you're not investing a lot of time.

2. Re-think the whole thing: There is little you are doing with windows that you can't do with linux. Primarily graphic intensive games really need windows. How about reducing your windows footprint to a single pair of RAID drive on the fakeRAID, making the others stand-alone drives, create a linux softRAID on them and off you go - dual boot forever if you want. Likely once you get used to the speed, security, and FREE-ness of linux, you never look back at windows and those drives will slow be converted to linux formats.

3. To really dive in rather than wade in - move you windows install to the fifth disk and give the other four to linux!

What ever you want to do it can be done with linux - I suggest a little reading, and a game plan, then check back in here and let's get you running Kubuntu!

FYI: I use RAID0, 1, and 5 on four identical disks. SoftRAID can use partitions rather than whole disks so you have way more flexibility. One tip is to use the same number of sectors for each RAID and they run a bit faster. I accomplish that easily by using identical disks and partitioning one of them, then copying the partition table to the other three.

Here's some speed stats:

RAID0 :Timing buffered disk reads: 1396 MB in 3.00 seconds = 465.20 MB/sec
RAID5 :Timing buffered disk reads: 762 MB in 3.02 seconds = 252.51 MB/sec
No RAID:Timing buffered disk reads: 376 MB in 3.00 seconds = 125.14 MB/sec

These are all four partition RAIDs using 64k chucks. I run my system OS and /tmp as RAID0, my /home as RAID5.

Other cools things to know about linux and the disk partition arena:

LVM = Large Volume Management: This allows you to string separate partitions together to act as one large drive.

Dozens of different formats that have different pluses and minuses: For example I use reiserfs for my OS and /home - better performance than ext3 and more stable than ext4 (IMO)and I use xfs on an LVM partition on my server because it handles large files better and thats where I keep my videos and stuff. And if your really want to get exited, check out BTRFS (aka "ButterFS") : it has RAID and LVM built into it! Still in development phase but I've been playing with it already.

[fermier]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

I found this article on Ubuntu 9.04 that I hoped would be close enough, as I haven't found a walkthrough on Kubuntu 10.04 (is there one?).
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto

Hi ViperLancer,

Oshunluvr gives some interesting hints and advice. Yes, you could use the Howto that you listed, but I have found that there are some threads (such as those given by dibl) that are more useful or at least more specific. One of them is:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1360445

It is not the one that I usually use as reference for I cannot find that thread for the moment. Keep on looking and you may find it. It was a step-by step guide by someone who went through the process.

The important things to check before you try any installation on a fakeRaid system are:

1. To ensure that dmraid actually sees your Raid volumes under /dev/mapper

I actually always prefer to create my partitions manually using fdisk (much like in the howto) before I start any installation. The explanation is an innate distrust of fancy graphical interfaces which do not show or tell you what they mess up behind those lovely windows. Be very careful if you mess around with the RAID partitions containing Windoze. Since I am old, I tend to write everything down on a piece of paper as I take the steps of creating the different partitions. Hey, I have been around a long time since the time when installing a graphical environment for Linux was only really optional... ;-)

2. Ensure that you are not using GRUB2 to manage your boot processes if your OS's are on fakeRAID volumes. I have posted questions in several places and nobody was able to confirm (or deny) that GRUB2 does not play well with fakeRAID. In general, I still prefer to avoid new fangled GRUB2 like the pest.

The good news is that it is possible to use Kubuntu and fakeRAID, at least with my nVidia chipset (and others have also reported success with different chipsets.) I shall admit that I have two fakeRAID1 systems under Kubuntu 9.04 having ext4 file systems (much to oshunluvr's horror and impending nightmares). The reason why I am still stuck with 9.04 is because of GRUB2 and lack of clear guidance as to how to install and configure a system using GRUB2 on fakeRAID, despite of what is said in the last post of this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1338445&page=5

It would still seem that there is reason for doubt. I guess the main idea has been spelled out already, it can be done depending on your hardware, but that you should be careful and for a first time installation, a single simple non-RAID system might be easier.

l8r

[oshunluvr]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

I stopped having those nightmares awhile ago! 8)

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Oh yes, and I forgot the compatibility issue in case hardware fails. With any hardware RAID, you have to replace it using identical or perfectly compatible hardware. But with a Linux softRAID, that is not the case, correct?

Exactly and point one in the reasons to use softraid over fake raid. In the real world I doubt you'd have much trouble finding another mobo with the ich10 chipset - at least for a couple of years.

Agreed on both points. It would be safer as I've actually had the issue before of having to buy an identical -read cheap & crappy- motherboard due to hardware failure and having a RAID set up on it. But not finding a replacement probably won't be an issue for several years.

I real issue in your case is the basic incompatibility of the two RAID systems. FakeRAID for windows and softRAID for linux.

Yep, that is definitely my issue. Combined with my lack of knowledge with Linux...

Talking points:
1. Since you're just beginning with linux, why not just install linux to that 5th drive and to a single partition? Kubuntu and all the trimmings will take well less than 12gb until you start doing VirtualBox or VM Ware machines. Once you're ready for more - your have some experience and you'll not risk your windows install. Kubuntu can be install in less than 30 minutes in most cases, so you're not investing a lot of time.

Problem with installing it to the 5th drive is it's strictly my backup drive. I do have the space to spare on it, but that's not its purpose. Plus, I intend to keep Windows permanently (mentioned before it's part of my job to know Windows, as I support it) and would like to keep it as its own OS rather than use a VM under Linux. I'm not worried about the time invested in this either. As I've mentioned, I completely admit/agree that Linux is a far superior/faster/more efficient/more secure/free OS, so it's worth time to learn it so I will be able to switch.

2. Re-think the whole thing: There is little you are doing with windows that you can't do with linux. Primarily graphic intensive games really need windows. How about reducing your windows footprint to a single pair of RAID drive on the fakeRAID, making the others stand-alone drives, create a linux softRAID on them and off you go - dual boot forever if you want. Likely once you get used to the speed, security, and FREE-ness of linux, you never look back at windows and those drives will slow be converted to linux formats.

I definitely run some graphics intensive games, so are you saying that Linux doesn't do them as well? Is that because of the games not being designed for Linux, or some Linux functionality? I still have yet to find what games are natively supported in Linux, but have heard of using WINE to emulate Windows for programs. So footprint... I think you need my disk layout, and maybe this will help you help me as well:

System = 2x320GB in RAID0 = 640GB total, 40GB NTFS partition for Windows OS, the rest is unpartitioned and intended to give 40GB chunks to various OSes (Kubuntu, FreeBSD, Windows Server 2003/2008, possibly others).
Data01 = 2x 1TB in RAID0 = 2TB total, single NTFS partition, entirely dedicated to storing my data (all extra forms of data, from documents to backups of user account/settings to installers for programs, and in some cases programs installed in Windows)
Data02 = 1x2TB stand-alone, single NTFS partition, stores backup of Data01 and also stores some old backups of other stuff I need to go through and clean up, so has only 600GB free (Data01 has .98TB free).

Could I use 40GB of unpartitioned space on System and install Kubuntu, using softRAID, without damaging the fakeRAID info for Windows? Thoughts?
As mentioned, I have to keep Windows, and would like to avoid VMs for the most part, so there will be no slowly removing Windows.

3. To really dive in rather than wade in - move you windows install to the fifth disk and give the other four to linux!

I think I explained this well enough above, right?

What ever you want to do it can be done with linux - I suggest a little reading, and a game plan, then check back in here and let's get you running Kubuntu!

Agreed! Pretty sure my game-plan is a good one, but maybe it isn't as good as I think, due to Linux/Windows not working all that well together, especially on a fakeRAID, and my ignorance of Linux.

FYI: I use RAID0, 1, and 5 on four identical disks. SoftRAID can use partitions rather than whole disks so you have way more flexibility. One tip is to use the same number of sectors for each RAID and they run a bit faster. I accomplish that easily by using identical disks and partitioning one of them, then copying the partition table to the other three.

Here's some speed stats:

RAID0 :Timing buffered disk reads: 1396 MB in 3.00 seconds = 465.20 MB/sec
RAID5 :Timing buffered disk reads: 762 MB in 3.02 seconds = 252.51 MB/sec
No RAID:Timing buffered disk reads: 376 MB in 3.00 seconds = 125.14 MB/sec

These are all four partition RAIDs using 64k chucks. I run my system OS and /tmp as RAID0, my /home as RAID5.

Other cools things to know about linux and the disk partition arena:

LVM = Large Volume Management: This allows you to string separate partitions together to act as one large drive.

Dozens of different formats that have different pluses and minuses: For example I use reiserfs for my OS and /home - better performance than ext3 and more stable than ext4 (IMO)and I use xfs on an LVM partition on my server because it handles large files better and thats where I keep my videos and stuff. And if your really want to get exited, check out BTRFS (aka "ButterFS") : it has RAID and LVM built into it! Still in development phase but I've been playing with it already.

Interesting info! The way you set that up and the performance of it is all interesting. So you can use Linux's softRAID to create different RAIDs across partitions on disks, rather than setting an entire disk as a RAID?
What about this LVM thing. What's the point of doing it that way instead of just creating a RAID?
Thanks for the formatting info, that's another question I've had. Do you know of a good article somewhere that goes over the pros/cons of different Linux partition formats? It was much easier in Windows, just use NTFS and set the cluster size according to the average size of files you expect to store on it.
I still have learning to do, like I'm aware of Linux's /root, /home, /var, /etc, but other than /home being the user directory, and I think /root is where the Linux OS primary system files are stored, I'm not familiar with the rest of them, or what others there are.

As another note, my Windows install is crapping out on me again... Yeah, I know. No, not virus related. Just issues with either Windows or some of the installed drivers. Yes, I did some repair work and partially restored it, but not completely. So, I'm going to be reinstalling Windows and changing it to 64-bit now.

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Oh yes, another question that I'm sure is explained somewhere but I haven't yet found it...

For the Linux partitions, you need /boot, /root, /swap, /home, any others? What sizes should /boot and /root be? /swap should equal how much RAM you have, and /home should be how much space you want to give to the user directories right? Does the /home store all user data, so like 95% of your HDD should go to this?

Any links to or pointers of what I should search for to find a good explanation of this?
Thanks.

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

I stopped having those nightmares awhile ago! 8)

Heh, you're both funny.

I also want to thank you both for your help and ideas. It is VERY much appreciated.

[oshunluvr]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Well, If you need windows for your job, you can't very well walk away from it can you? I don't really know what your job is but likely you're right that you'd be better off having a dual boot setup.

To bad you don't have another computer about, because with all that hard drive space, you'd really benefit from a dedicated file server that ran linux. Then you could use better disk formats than NTFS.

Another possibility: In the immediate term - you could easily install VirtualBox in your windows install and then run Kubuntu in a VM. This wouldn't be the best for long term, but would let you try it out. I use VBox to try other distros once in a while.

Re: LVM: The benefits include: Stitching together different sized partitions from multiple hard drives to act as a single partition. You can add or subtract volumes (partitions) from it to increase or decrease it's size. Very useful in the server environment.

The games issue is really one of vendor support. Some games, like Warcraft III, actually run better under wine with a good linux distro than it does in windows. I think mostly vendors don't want to spend development dollars to support 15% of computer users that run an OS that's cost free. I suspect they incorrectly feel if we don't pay for our OS, why would we buy a game? I think this explains why they'll do it for Mac, but not us. Those Mac users SPEND MONEY!

Could I use 40GB of unpartitioned space on System and install Kubuntu, using softRAID, without damaging the fakeRAID info for Windows? Thoughts?
As mentioned, I have to keep Windows, and would like to avoid VMs for the most part, so there will be no slowly removing Windows. Sad

40gb is more than enough for any linux distro and data, in fact you could get 4 or 5 in that much space. I assume your 2x320gb drives are totally consumed by the fakeRAID setup so you be installing to a fakeRAID partition. As Fermier said, it can be done, but I can't help you there - not because of attitude, but lack of experience! IMO: The easiest solution might be to squeeze 20gb out of your Data02 drive and install there - without softRAID for now. In case you don't know it already - linux can be installed to any partition - primary or logical any anywhere on the drive. No windows limitations there.

Your first task will be to read up on boot managers (unless you're already using one). The default for most linux distros is GRUB (aka grub-legacy) but some, like (K)Ubuntu have transitioned to GRUB-PC (aka GRUB2). Might I suggest that installing GRUB-PC to your fakeRAID drives might be problematic. If your bios will allow it - install it to that stand alone drive and boot to it. This way you won't have to worry about your windows MBR.

and since you brought this up...

I still have learning to do, like I'm aware of Linux's /root, /home, /var, /etc, but other than /home being the user directory, and I think /root is where the Linux OS primary system files are stored, I'm not familiar with the rest of them, or what others there are.

Actually the directory /root holds files owned by the root user and serves as the root users home. One small confusing thing is the term "root" directory means / not /root - the later being referred to as "root home" or something similar. The primary OS files are in /boot /usr /etc /lib /sbin and a few others.

One really nice windows/linux difference is various partitions and drives, once mounted (linux term meaning made available to read and/or write to) the drives and partitions are addressed by their mounting points. And since you can mount to almost any directory - you get to decide where your files are addressed. No silly drive letters to remember or manage. We'll talk about this more when you get your install running.

[oshunluvr]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Oh yes, another question that I'm sure is explained somewhere but I haven't yet found it...

For the Linux partitions, you need /boot, /root, /swap, /home, any others? What sizes should /boot and /root be? /swap should equal how much RAM you have, and /home should be how much space you want to give to the user directories right? Does the /home store all user data, so like 95% of your HDD should go to this?

Any links to or pointers of what I should search for to find a good explanation of this?
Thanks.

Actually those directories you refer to need not be actual partitions. They MAY be if you wish - linux doesn't care. Swap space is normally a separate partition by default, but can also be a file (like windows) if you wish or you may not have one at all - linux doesn't care.

The recommended basic and usually default setup is:

one partition for swap equal to your ram size - roughly the same as windows paging file, having a dedicated partition for it provides better performance.
one partition for / - this holds your OS and all software
one partition for /home - this holds your user(s) settings and data, roughly equal to windows "Document and Settings" directory.

I can't stress enough how flexible everything is. In fact - with all you've got going on on your hard drives, and since you're kind of testing or just starting out with linux - you should probably keep everything in one partition for simplicities sake for now.

My setup?
Four RAID0 OS devices (daily user, testing and backup), four more non-raid partitions for other OS's, four swap partitions (they function together like a RAID0), four /boot partitions for each RAID0 OS device (/boot can't be inside a RAID0), two dedicated partitions for GRUB-PC in RAID1 (primary and backup boot manager - this is not the normal setup), a single RAID5 device for storing my data files on, a RAID0 device for /tmp, a separate file server for movies, music, pics, whatever, and finally a btrfs device spread over four drives holding backups.

My desktop partition/device sizes (4x400gb drives) are roughly 16gb for each OS both RAID and non-RAID, 200gb for my personal files, 32gb for tmp, 4x2gb for swap, backup space is 1.5tb, /boot and GRUB partitions are 400mb (so they hardly count). The server has 1.7tb for media and .3tb for backing up my personal files. The server OS takes about 1.5gb and servers two printers, scanner, voip, ktorrent and a couple of other things along with the files.

I have a media computer in the TV room, my power desktop unit, the server, and the families and neighbors laptops using various flavors of windows and linux and they all use the printers and access the media files and can backup to the server.

Not much, right?

[ViperLancer]

Re: New to Linux - RAID installation

Well, If you need windows for your job, you can't very well walk away from it can you? I don't really know what your job is but likely you're right that you'd be better off having a dual boot setup.

Yep, I can't walk away from it. My primary job has been Windows Desktop support for years, so I have to have the OS. Plus I have to be able to test software (would be better to do in a VM), but also need to test hardware setups with it and remain familiar with doing so.

To bad you don't have another computer about, because with all that hard drive space, you'd really benefit from a dedicated file server that ran linux. Then you could use better disk formats than NTFS.

Yeah, that's my end-goal! I want to build another PC eventually and switch this one to a dedicated Linux file/network server, may or may not use Samba to act as a domain controller for Windows clients. Would be useful for testing, but a LONG ways off.
Better disk formats than NTFS? Again, a list of the different formats and how they compare would be great! I've been pretty happy with NTFS, though. Also NSFW, but that's a WHOLE other story!

Another possibility: In the immediate term - you could easily install VirtualBox in your windows install and then run Kubuntu in a VM. This wouldn't be the best for long term, but would let you try it out. I use VBox to try other distros once in a while.

Yeah, I was trying to avoid using Linux in a VM because I wanted to install x64, but my Windows install is x86 and the VM wouldn't take the x64 Linux. However, since I'm having issues with Windows and am going to reinstall/upgrade to x64, this issue may be eliminated. However, I'd still like to avoid it because while my system is fairly powerful and has TONS of HDD space, I only have 2GB of RAM.

Re: LVM: The benefits include: Stitching together different sized partitions from multiple hard drives to act as a single partition. You can add or subtract volumes (partitions) from it to increase or decrease it's size. Very useful in the server environment.

Interesting... Not sure I entirely understand the purpose of this, but it is interesting you can do that. I just don't see any need to be able to make changes like this most of the time. Though I can see some applications for it.

The games issue is really one of vendor support. Some games, like Warcraft III, actually run better under wine with a good linux distro than it does in windows. I think mostly vendors don't want to spend development dollars to support 15% of computer users that run an OS that's cost free. I suspect they incorrectly feel if we don't pay for our OS, why would we buy a game? I think this explains why they'll do it for Mac, but not us. Those Mac users SPEND MONEY!

Yeah, damn vendors. There are some out there that write Linux versions, though. But, I think Linux is much less than 15% of the user base, isn't it? Course, that is a good point... Why would you buy a game if you won't buy an OS? Course, it's superior to Windows AND Mac OSes in my opinion, not to mention free... Yeah, personally I hate Mac more than Windows.

Could I use 40GB of unpartitioned space on System and install Kubuntu, using softRAID, without damaging the fakeRAID info for Windows? Thoughts?
As mentioned, I have to keep Windows, and would like to avoid VMs for the most part, so there will be no slowly removing Windows. Sad

40gb is more than enough for any linux distro and data, in fact you could get 4 or 5 in that much space. I assume your 2x320gb drives are totally consumed by the fakeRAID setup so you be installing to a fakeRAID partition. As Fermier said, it can be done, but I can't help you there - not because of attitude, but lack of experience! IMO: The easiest solution might be to squeeze 20gb out of your Data02 drive and install there - without softRAID for now. In case you don't know it already - linux can be installed to any partition - primary or logical any anywhere on the drive. No windows limitations there.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the fakeRAID is consuming them or not. I think I remember using the RAID setup utility to create the partition of 40GB, so I think it left the rest free.
4 or 5 installs, huh? Well, I need to keep some space for expansion. Room to install programs like OpenOffice, games, etc. Since my System RAID effective space is 596GB, I could still fit 15 OSes on it at 40GB each, so I'm not worried about giving them room. AND I could always use Gparted to make room if it becomes an issue.
Can't help me because of a lack of experience?! GREAT, I'm getting help from another NOOB! > lol
Yeah, I understand, but thanks for all the rest of your help so far. It's definitely helping me to think about stuff, and at least offering possibilities, even if I don't think they're right for me.
No, I didn't know Linux could be installed to any partition. Does it also use the terms of primary/extended/logical partitions then? But it can install to/boot from any of them?
If I recall, Windows can have 4 primary OR 3 primary and 1 extended (which can hold many logical) partitions. Is it the same in Linux?

Your first task will be to read up on boot managers (unless you're already using one). The default for most linux distros is GRUB (aka grub-legacy) but some, like (K)Ubuntu have transitioned to GRUB-PC (aka GRUB2). Might I suggest that installing GRUB-PC to your fakeRAID drives might be problematic. If your bios will allow it - install it to that stand alone drive and boot to it. This way you won't have to worry about your windows MBR.

Already started reading up on GRUB a bit, but all I've found so far is stuff saying "Here's what they do, and why to use this not that." Nothing about HOW to use it, or even how to INSTALL it.
So if I install this GRUB boot manager on a drive in my system that doesn't host my Windows, then I don't risk my Windows MBR? Or did I misunderstand that?

and since you brought this up...

I still have learning to do, like I'm aware of Linux's /root, /home, /var, /etc, but other than /home being the user directory, and I think /root is where the Linux OS primary system files are stored, I'm not familiar with the rest of them, or what others there are.

Actually the directory /root holds files owned by the root user and serves as the root users home. One small confusing thing is the term "root" directory means / not /root - the later being referred to as "root home" or something similar. The primary OS files are in /boot /usr /etc /lib /sbin and a few others.

Ah, I am familiar with the term of "root directory" meaning simply "/", but guess I hadn't thought of what you would refer to "/root" as, or how to specify "/root" instead of "/". Actually, Windows also uses "root" to define the top-level of a Windows drive, such as C:\.

One really nice windows/linux difference is various partitions and drives, once mounted (linux term meaning made available to read and/or write to) the drives and partitions are addressed by their mounting points. And since you can mount to almost any directory - you get to decide where your files are addressed. No silly drive letters to remember or manage. We'll talk about this more when you get your install running.

I'm familiar with Linux using the term "mounted" to mean making a device available as Windows does too, but not quite sure I understand what you mean past that. In Windows (though I've never done it) I believe you can mount an HDD under a directory in your file structure of another HDD (not positive on that). If I recall, something similar can be done in Linux, but can't you do it either way? Mount a drive under a folder, or a folder as its own drive? Is that what you're talking about?
And the "silly drive letters" don't bother me. The drives are named by letter, which is how the OS differentiates them, but also by name (to help the user navigate them). I have no problem remembering them. For most Windows systems, they're pretty standard. A: is the floppy, C: is the HDD Windows is installed on, and D: is the CD/DVD drive. But Windows sorta has a nice feature over Linux on this, being if you plug a removable drive in (flash, USB HDD, etc) it'll automatically mount it for you. Also a vulnerability since it autoruns the device, but can be disabled.