THE CHAS Win XP Pro / Linux

Stat, what are you doing? I'm just going to throw my 2 cents in here too. I tried suse 9 and fedora core 2 (there's a core 3 now). I really liked the Fedora installation and use it to play with linux. If I was ever going to get serious about linux I would stick with Fedora. The setup went like a breeze and it's a whiz to use (the graphics are great too). I also liked it because all I did for installation was set off 10gig of disk space with Partition Magic and let the install do the rest. I wanted to keep my xp boot loader and just modify the boot.ini in case I wanted to dump the linux and it was a snap. Here's a link on how to do it (you can probably do this with any linux install):

http://www.linuxgazette.com/node/9512

As usual, I defer to TheChas.

Cheers.

RW

Sorry it took me so long, I wanted to give you an answer that was up to your expectations.

Keep in mind that I have not done any of this myself.

First, is this for business or personal use?

For business use, I recommend going with RedHat, Suse or Mandrake distributions for both support and ruggedness.

For personal use, Fedora is the new name for the free version of RedHat. Mandrake and Debian may be worth looking at also.

As to setting up a multi-boot system that supports both Linux and Windows, here is what I would start with:

3 physical hard drives.
Linux OS,
Windows OS,
Shared data drive.

(Why? with 3 physical hard drives, you have an easier time recovering from any crashes or errors.
Also, should you decide to drop back to just 1 OS, the task is simpler than deleting and recovering partition / logical drive space.)

A boot manager.
Either one of the free-ware programs or Boot Commander.

Install what you want to be the default (main) OS on the C: drive.

Install the second OS on the D: drive.

Different boot managers require different setup precautions, so read the documentation for the boot manager you decide to use.

Here are some links of interest:

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6329-1054311-1.html

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-1040020.html

http://xosl.sourceforge.net/index.html

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/gvollant/bootpart.htm
(there was a TR article on this but they seem to have lost it)

http://lilo.go.dyndns.org/

Sorry I could not provide more details.
Leave this open for a few days. If I think of anything else, I will add a comment.

Best Wishes,

Chas

I'm by no means an expert on this but I've done this a number times and tried a few scenarios, so heres my contribution. This information may not apply to all distros but is based on my experiences with RH8/9, Mandrake10 and Fedora Core 3.

I can't recommend any distros, but my experiences with RH9 and FC3 have been the best.

Install XP first, then Linux. Most recent distros will detect XP and (optionally) install a bootloader for you (Grub, Lilo etc.).

TIP: Make sure you create a boot disk.

Most distros will make a recommendation as to the location and size of your Linux partitions. By default they'll allocate partitions for boot, / and swap. Whether you accept the recommendation is a matter of preference/ convenience.

If you plan to install multiple versions of Linux and share data between them it would make sense to create a partition for /home.

If you plan to share data between Linux and Windows I'd suggest creating a FAT 32 partition which you can then mount in the Linux filesystem. It's my understanding that NTFS under Linux is not reliable and should be avoided.

I was always a little uncomfortable with using my main XP system to experiment with Linux, so invested in drive caddies. Swapping drives eliminates any possible risk.

TIP: Buy good quality (aluminium) caddies, they're about 3 - 4 times the price of plastic ones but worth the extra.

Once you get hooked on Linux you'll want to run it on a dedicated box or maybe even abandon Windows altogether.