Linux

[Corban]

Ok, I've been doing some research on linux at the moment and I'm thinking about giving it a try. But my problem is I'm still very confused on how everything works on a linux system. Could anybody explain to me the basics? Thanks.

[windhound]

sure

the MDK, well, Mandriva now, installer will beable to resize your NTFS windows drive
its kind of hit and miss though, so make sure you backup your data
(I just tried to resize my windows partitian and it killed windows (ie, windows refuses to boot).. but when I did it before it was fine.. not sure what was up)

the SuSe installer does it as well I believe, though the Fedora installer cant do anything

when you install linux, it comes with a bootloader
basically a screen will come up when you start your computer, directly after your manufactuer's start page, and you can chose which you want to boot (back-logged linux kernels or windows)

if you dont make a choice after like 5 seconds (configurable) it'll boot what you set as default



...
eh, thats the basics on a bootloader
I'll find Beatles' guide later, its pretty good.. need sleep for now...

[Floppy_Drive]

I had WindowsME and Linspire booting. If you're using two hard drives give windows the first one. I think it would need to be on the primary partition if you're using a single hard drive. Not sure about that though ask beatles. Most of the linux distributions will auto detect windows and set it up for you. If it doesn't for the grub boot loader you put this in the grub file:

title "Whatever windows you have"
root (hd0, 0)
chainloader +1

not sure what the lilo one is you'll have to ask somebody else. I think most of the time it will do all that for you though. What linux distribution are you going to try?

Here's some links:
Ubuntu
Suse
[/URL]Debian
Slackware(might be a little hard)
Linux Games
Info on some Linux distributions
You can get help here if you run into a problem

[windhound]

Fedora is good (http://fedora.redhat.com)
but its getting on my nerves.. it wont update itself properly o_O
rather silly.. *pokes it*

but yeah.. I suggust SuSe.. it looks really nice, it was bought out by novell, the big security company, so its got decent funding behind it (usually the better funded the product, the better it is, with windoze being the exception )

[The Beatles]

IMPORTANT! When resizing any disk with Windows also on it, you MUST leave the last 8-10 megabytes free. Otherwise Windows won't boot. I found this out the hard way. Windows must keep partition info there.

[windhound]

...that, or MDK screws up your NTFS partitian... forget the exact error, but it wasnt exactly pretty and amounted to 'ntfs resize FAILED'

[Floppy_Drive]

I think Ubuntu would be a good place to start. I havn't used Fedora or Suse though. Ubuntu has that installer thing so it would be easy to install things.

[Corban]

Hey, I'm testing out Ubuntu on a boot disk right now. Thank you for the suggestion.

[Devari]

I use Ubunutu, so if you have any questions I can probably answer them for you.

[Corban]

Thank you for the offer . Though I think I'll have to wait till after my schools dance this week to repartition my hard drive for it... (or whatever I end up doing...) Maybe I'll have time the weekend after...

[Floppy_Drive]

If you do it yourself try cfdisk instead of fdisk. cfdisk was easy for me the first time I did it. Remember Windows MUST be on your FIRST partition on the hard drive or it will NOT boot. Found that out the hard way. :*laughs*:

[Corban]

Ok, here is an update on my situation. I have successfully damaged my windows OS (with a virus and/or a trojan horse I can not easily get rid of). Since I also was starting to recieve memory errors I think I am just going to repartition my hard drive (this time duel boot though). So far I have backed up the my documents folder. I'm also trying to think about what setting/files I will want to keep on my "new" system. Can anybody be of any help here? (my mind has gone blank). Also does anybody have a simple guide to installing a boot OS from scratch?

Thanks for all your help.

[windhound]

mm, yeah
everything in Documents and Settings should be saved
except for the few files that refuse to be moved, you dont need thoes anyhow
most of your program settings are in there, poke around, 's kinda neat

for future reference, all your settings in linux are stored in /home/user directory in hidden .folders. Back them up once you get the system the way you want it. If you ever have to reinstall, for the most part you can just put the folders back, with some tweaking, and have everything the way you had it (ut2004 saves, firefox settings, and all email in thunderbird being the most important for me)

Size:
if you have a large hdd, give windows quite a bit and give linux a little less
I've got an 80 gig, I gave windows 50 gigs and linux 25 gigs and its plenty for each

Important:
install windows First
otherwise I believe it'll wipe out your linux bootloader and you'll have to reinstall it (well, the bootloader anyways)
its less hassel to install linux second

if you can, repartitian the drive before wiping windows.. or you can always use somthin like Knoppix to do it

(oddly enough, on my machine MDK didnt actually damage my ntfs partitian, it just managed to wipe/corrupt a few nessisary windows files, I tested the ntfs several ways and could find nothin wrong with the formatting, so yeah)

good luck

[Floppy_Drive]

Do you have one of those Windows restore disk or an install disk that will let you pick which parition to put Windows on?

[Corban]

Argh, ok here is what I did. I repartitioned windows but I accidentally made windows take up all of the space on my harddrive. Will the Ubunutu install disk let me make windows smaller in order to install Ubunutu? (I'm going to test it now to find out)

p.s. I'm going to try to install Ubunutu Breezy Badger Preview.