Linux dual boot: good or bad?

I've done this once. I didn't have any problem using either OS.

I did have problems when I attempted to rebuild the drive as a single partition Windows drive. The drive was a spare, and I wanted to put XP on it and use it to replace a dead HD. I don't remember the exact errors, but I couldn't use a Windows 2000 CD to remove the Linux partition (Red Hat 9), I was unable to install Windows XP, and I couldn't ghost the drive with Ghost 7.0.

That would be if the windows partition is NTFS and you have a fairly high security setting in linux.

if fat 32 you don't loose access.

The concern with dual booting is more a microsoft concern, they don't want to lose your money ;)
actually, the concern is possible corruption of files you use linux to write to ntfs partition.

there is never a problem booting into either os, as long as you use a linux bootloader.

edited for typo

Dual booting wiht SuSe, any version later then 8.1 is very easy, I have even triple booted with 98se/Xp/SuSE.
But to make it foolproof, I have had to resort to a paid for version of Partition magic 8.0 (1/2 price PC world New Year Sale a few years ago.
1/ DEfrag windows.. takes ages.
2/ Boot from Partition Magic CD.
3/ Shrink XP partition to leave 6 to 8 gig free.
4/ In that free 6 to 8 gig create an extended partition, note windoze/dos won't see this.
5/ In the Extended partition create a 250-512 meg Linux swap file.
6/ Leave the rest of the extended partition unallocated.
7/ Boot from SuSe installation cd set (set of five cd's) select install and just follow orders, it will ask you to stick in CD #2,3,4 &5 when it wants them.
You then are asked for a root password, remember it as it is quite difficult to remove it if you forget it, and eventually it will reboot and restart with GRUB boot loader with Linux/XP/Failsafe/Floppy options.
It sets SuSe as default, but later you can use YAST, (Alt + F2) type in YAST, then root password and select boot options. You can edit default and the time delay and about everything else.
SuSE will find and set up nearly all your hardware, make sure printers /scanners etc are switched on though during installation.

I find it easier and a lot quicker to install than Windows XP.
It works on a P-iii 550 Mhz very well with 125 meg ram (The PC came from a dustbin outside a Charity Shop!)
The only problem is one of security. Any Linux user will be able to read/open/edit/save as any Windoze file on the PC. thats why I use it for data recovery. Linux sees all, Windows doesn't even know that its there!

The only issue i have is since i use FC5 i can't get my users to have write access to a FAT32 partition, this was working fine on FC4.

Even if i set RW in /etc/fstab.

I'm a doctoral student in Computer Science and am working on localization of indoor wireless data radio signals. While building up landmark machines some of the hardware I was using was only accessible using cygwin under Windows... but we wanted to port it to an actual Linux distro (understandibly). So, long story longer, I configured all our landmark machines to dual boot Win XP and Debian so that I could work on development of the Linux functionality, but still have the capability to move back to the proven functionality under Windows.

Dual boot was easier than I thought. The resource I used mainly was:

http://www.aboutdebian.com/dualboot.htm

Their steps are pretty general, but even if you decide not to follow their steps, try to use the bootpart utility. It is quite a nice and fast alternative to doing a dd on the Linux partition info, copying it out to a floppy, copying it back over to Windows, etcetera, etctera. The steps they present are a little muddled and they have somewhat different procedures for different versions of Windows, so it is advisable to first read everything, read it again, and then decide what pieces you want to use.

In general I have my machines first boot the Windows boot manager. Then when I select booting into Linux, it boots the GRUB manager, where I select my kernel version. While it is possible to do it all in one boot manager I wouldn't recommend it. A fellow student in my lab did that, and he's a Linux guru, and it took him about 4 hours. Whereas my first dual boot was done in about 40 minutes (including Linux install).

Additional unsolicited advice: I came from the PC world into Linux as well, and I have coined a little maxim to describe Linux to other people:

"in Linux you can do anything you want, but to do anything at all, you need to know everything there is"

Linux is filled with incompatabilities, non-deterministic behavior and cryptic and arcane commands. Once you know how it all works though, you can do some amazing things... but the learning curve is extremely steep. Linux people often enjoy tracking down bugs and modifying and patching their system and reading newsgroups, forums and man pages in order to tweak their system into the state they want or to figure out how to do what they want. Granted Windows certainly has its problems too... but just be forewarned that Linux will take a lot of getting used to.

Subee,

If your Linux install corrupts or the drive fails (neither terribly likely) you will experience a sinking feeling on boot: GRUB error. The boot sector on the primary drive is looking for GRUB (or Lilo), the multiple boot manager on the, now, invalid drive or partition.

You haven't lost the data on the Win install--pop a bootable Win CD in and reboot to the recovery console (DOS mode) and repair (restore to default) your boot sector using FIXBOOT.EXE.

If you read up on the usage of FIXBOOT.EXE before you dual boot you'll be prepared for the worst.

If you are going to dual boot, the consensus seems to be that setting up a second drive to hold linux is advisable. You can format a partition in FAT32 on the primary drive to share files between the two OS's

I learned how to dual boot by just doing/playing. I did my first dual boot configuration with an older computer I had with Win 2000 Pro. And just out of curiosity, I bought Mandrake Linux 6 (long time ago). I pretty much followed the manual and after about an hour or so to get the hard drive partitioned, it went well. But then there was the issue of Grub not booting up the Windows side.

Then over the years, I tried multi-booting. Just experimenting, I was able to get a computer to but to Linux (any of the flavors I had) Win 98, 2000 and XP. I won't say that this is something to report to Ripley's or anything. But I was proud that I was able to mess around and make it work.

I'm thinking about setting up a dual-boot config on an old Dell PowerEdge 2300 I got over the summer last year. I have Windows 2000 Server already installed. Haven't decided what flavor of Linux to use. I like Redhat and Fedora Core.

I haven't really gotten into USING Linux as far as the commands. I've messed around with using a few, but I haven't done any hardcore command using. Probably because I mainly use Windows.

I guess the only advice I can give you is to experiment...see what you can do.

Well, back in the I had to have every OS I could get my fingers on. I dual booted and then some. I used to think a boot loader was marvel! It did help me because like most of the young me likes of the time having a PC was a big deal. So it wasn't like I had a spare around.

I see things a little different today. Linux can give an older PC new life and parts are every where. In fact I had (still have) loads of fun making old PC's useful and doing what was thought to be non do-able. Memory stix are cheap these days and a quick and easy way to speed things up on an older PC.

Bottom line, I don't dual boot. I work to inter-operate and share. In don't use windows (if I can help it) at all. As a student Linux will teach you more about how an operating system works. You will learn more about Networks,routing,fire walls,protocols,file systems, and about programing language,compilers,and the world is yours Gigs of applications. Remember, MS did not invent TCP/IP,SMTP,POP3,UDP,DNS, and a whole lot more.

There is a post here on TR from someone trying to get rid of a Linux boot loader. If that tells you anything. But for the most part a boot loader is safe to use and dual booting works great! I just don't recomend it. Things are fixable if things go wrong.

I leaned a long time ago to live by my own words that I used to never live by.. Back things UP! For as many times as I install an OS I never loose a thing. I plan and organize as if I'm going to Install, re-install, and or restore at any given time. Today I can install an OS,talk on the phone,make coffee,run to the store, one hand tied behind my back, re-load my files and settings like nothing ever happend.

Dual boot good or bad? Install Linux and have a gooood time! But dual booting is not a bad thing.
X

You can always repair the configuration for the bootloader (GRUB or LILO) using a LiveCD or, if all you've lost is the boot entry for Windows, you can edit the bootloader configuration from within Linux.

It's not nearly as difficult as you make it sound.

I have been using Linux in a dual booting environment for the last five years with not one problem. Actually for the last two years I have been using 8 hard drive partitions as follows:Windows 2000 Pro, Fedora Core 4, Fedora Core 5, Novel Desktop Linux 9, ext3 data partition, Fat32 Data partition and two spares I use for testing. A second drive with two partitions one for Linux swap and the other for Windows swap. I use "grub" boot loader.

I am assuming you have Windows installed. Get help with the partitioning from some one familiar with "fdisk" and Unix/Linux disk environment (Unix/Linux treats drives and partitions as files). Else, you could use "Partition Magic" to make your partitioning and let the Linux installer( which is very straight forward) takes care of the rest including dual booting.

You will find Linux to be and outstanding OS and fun to work with.

Manny

I?ve been running dual boot on a PIII 1 GHz for years now. I?ve had XP running with RH 9, FC 1&2, Xandros and Mandrake 10. I?ve also had 2000 Server running on the same partition (not at the same time) so reformatting wasn?t a problem (from ext3). You should use a new/different disk unless you have good backups of what?s on your current disk

Heres how I recommend you do it.
1 boot partition of about 50-100 MB that must be at the start of the disk (before cylinder 1024).
1 partition for windows
1 swap partition (double the size of your ram)
1 partition for each Linux distribution (I keep two, and sometimes have win server running on the other).

Put the boot loader on the boot partition so Linux doesn?t take over your MBR (I like when an OS gives you a choice).

Also remember the order of the OS's Create the partitions like I have described [b]but format the boot partition with a non MS file system or windows will make it a windows boot partition[/b] which you don?t want. Install windows first because it overwrites the MBR and Linux second so it knows to boot from the boot partition (each time you install windows you need to reinstall the boot loader which makes ghosting windows a good idea).

Or you can use VMWARE server for windows if you just want to play around in Linux.

I no longer have that PIII in working order but I seem to have a problem with dual booting on my new Athlon with SATA II disks. I can?t get the pre-install environment to load onto SATA II disks with pre-existing partitions. If I put an old 3GB IDE drive in there with the SATA's to server as a boot partition I don?t have a problem. (SATA's are both WD's not raided on a Nforce controller)

If anyone has a clue as to why let me know.

The only problem i have run into was mounting, reading, and write to a NTFS (WinXP)partition, But there is a project out that is working on this problem. check out http://linux-ntfs.org .
Also you might want to install it on a seperate hard drive. just incase something happens to your windows install. i learned the hard way after a worm infected my old hard drive on my windows install...and it wreaked havoc so badly i had to rebuild, unfortunatly that removed my Xandros OCE 2 install as well.
until you get around to getting a linux only box setup dual boot should be just fine. if you haven't already you should search for a distro chooser so you'll get an idea of which linux you want to install. for example:
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/

there are others though. Ubuntu/Kubuntu is quite nice to start out on.

You don't have a problem if you install linux after windows. Almost linux versions have a GRUB or LILO (boot loaders) that help you to boot eiter windows or linux. There is a problem if you have trouble with Windows system and you have to repair or reinstall. Then windows overwrite MBR and the Linux os can be start. You can repair that problem with Linux Recovery CD or first CD.
But there is another option: you can use two hdd and a hdd rack, an hdd for each os.
Good luck.

Sure I have had some probs, and learnt a lot fixing them and evolving the multiboot system that I use.
I have 2 HDDs, both use LBA, the first [hda] has 14 partitions, 3 primary, 11 logical in the extended. This disk is 160 GB.
The second is 20 GB with just 4 primary.
I have partitions for Dos, W98, WinXP, NTFS [Video editing], 9 different distros of Linux.
I currently use Grub as my BM to boot to any of these 12 options, plus a few safe options & Memtest.
When I upgraded to the 160 GB disk about 2-3 years ago, I found Grub couldn't reach my kernels - I always got Error 18. I found that my BIOS restricts grub to loading kernels from the first 16 GB [approx]
I had allocated hda1 to Dos [F16], because my tests confirmed this was the only way to boot directly into Dos. This was only 250 MB - plenty for Dos. Then hda2 was allocated to WinXP, which occupied the next 25 GB so my linux partitions were all unreachable with Grub. I tried to upgrade my BIOS but the updates didn't fix this problem.
I had Win98 on the first 12 GB of my second HDD [hdc1]. I discovered that Grub couldn't even reach across this 12 GB to boot linux from hdc2.
My solution was to use my partitioner to resize hdc2 down by 1.2 GB, move the hdc1 [W98] 12 GB partition by 1.2GB into this free space to create free space at the start of hdc, then create a boot partition, hdc4 in this 1.2 GB space. All my linux distros reference this hdc4 as /boot and all kernels and initrd's, etc are kept here along with Grub. 1.2 GB seems to be plenty of space for my 9 linux distros and 14 kernels.
When I install a new distro I tell it to not install any bootloader, but it will still create its own fstab. Then I use an existing distro [or a live CD] to check fstab and to edit the /boot/grub/menu.conf [or grub.conf] to add new menu options for that new distro.]
I lot of linux distros have very dumb installers that can't pick up on what else needs to be booted and go into your menu.conf, so to avoid them trashing your setup it is better to do this step manually.
I've had a few other problems - especially with some other boot managers before I settled on Grub. I've also had MBR and partition BS trashed, but these can be fixed relatively easily. Having multi-distros on one machine is very convenient and I often move files between distros and to/from windows.
SO I DO RECOMMEND THAT YOU GIVE IT A GO.
There's a lot of help out there if you need any.
But I avoid writing to NTFS. I would write to a F32 partion and then in windows copy or move to the NTFS partition.
Now I am also experimenting with VMware booting linux from within WinXP.

well,
that's a good question but not the best question actually
keep in mind i'm not an expert of linux, i only find it handy as a java programmer

reply to good question: the dual boot and particular formatting configuration, *could* cause seriuos problems, which i actually had, unless you are very very expert to restore mbr, partition table, and data

reply to best question: if you think about it, the real problem is that if want dual boot, probably you really want linux, but you need to use windows: not handy continuously switch from to other...
--> virtualbox for linux full (for personal use) or ose if you are a professional
--> qemu "suite" in linux (particularly debian and ubuntu) for anyone, but a bit time is required to learn it
thus you run win inside lin: you simply click on the gnome window list and choose windows, and inside that window you have windows' windows... :-)

that's all, the only real-life solution

c u

looka

There may be an occasional issue, but mostly those have to do with removing linux from the disk (Windows weak fdisk can not do this reliably). Or fixing a boot loader to point to a different/new partition. But all the answers to these is usually a google away or a decent forum post. Also, many linux communities ahve excellent forums, and if you spend time searching you can find answers you need without having to post and wait.
Another good option is to use a virtual machine to install linux in/on. This will let you get your feet wet and look at different distros untill you find one you lke the looks of to dual boot.i