Linux and windows xp

[Codyz28]

Can you have Linux and Windows XP on the same pc?

 

[Bateluer]

Yes, most linux distros make it very easy to dual boot.

 

[rumptis]

Yes you can but I can't tell you how to do it. I know some version will repartition your drive for you during setup if you already have XP installed.

 

[Codyz28]

Hmmm. Would you have to have two hard drives to do this? And would it be even worth the trouble? I thought about going with just Linux, but I hear you cant play many games with it is that true?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Codyz28
Hmmm. Would you have to have two hard drives to do this? And would it be even worth the trouble? I thought about going with just Linux, but I hear you cant play many games with it is that true?

You can do it with just one hard drive. Make sure you have some empty space on the drive at the end after you install windows, and pop in the Linux cd.

drag's made plenty of excellent posts on the state of gaming on Linux. Do a search.

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: Codyz28
Hmmm. Would you have to have two hard drives to do this? And would it be even worth the trouble? I thought about going with just Linux, but I hear you cant play many games with it is that true?

WineX works with many games...

But I do agree, the gaming industry is not quite 100 percent linux friendly...but it is improving....

 

[drag]

It's pretty easy to dual boot Windows XP.

If you have a 2nd drive laying around, that would be pretty easy to do, and safe.

But if you want it on the same harddrive, you need be able to have about 10-15 gigs of space free on your harddrive. People use partition magic or qparted to reduce the size of the Windows partition to make room for the 2 linux partitions you need. (one large for all your files, and another around 500meg to 1gig partition for swap partition).

Once you make room for it (backup before doing that, resizing partitions isn't the safest thing to do sometimes) all you have to do is have a recover WinXP cdrom that you can get to the recovery console in. You need that incase you decide you don't like Linux or give up, or something bad happenned. That way you can use the disk to get your Window's bootloader back into working condition.

Once you have that, and resized the partition to make room, and have all your Linux installation media burned to cdroms, then the installation is relatively painless.

Most Linux installations have nice graphical installation managers that will do most of the work and try to explain what is happenning as you go along. Usually if you don't know what to do, just accept the defaults and you'll be fine.

 

[Hyperblaze]

Originally posted by: drag
It's pretty easy to dual boot Windows XP.

If you have a 2nd drive laying around, that would be pretty easy to do, and safe.

But if you want it on the same harddrive, you need be able to have about 10-15 gigs of space free on your harddrive. People use partition magic or qparted to reduce the size of the Windows partition to make room for the 2 linux partitions you need. (one large for all your files, and another around 500meg to 1gig partition for swap partition).

Once you make room for it (backup before doing that, resizing partitions isn't the safest thing to do sometimes) all you have to do is have a recover WinXP cdrom that you can get to the recovery console in. You need that incase you decide you don't like Linux or give up, or something bad happenned. That way you can use the disk to get your Window's bootloader back into working condition.

Once you have that, and resized the partition to make room, and have all your Linux installation media burned to cdroms, then the installation is relatively painless.

Most Linux installations have nice graphical installation managers that will do most of the work and try to explain what is happenning as you go along. Usually if you don't know what to do, just accept the defaults and you'll be fine.

10-15 gigs of space?

Yikes! I'd run out of room with such a small size

My current setup is 120 gigs, planning on having 240 for my new server =)

 

[drag]

That's about what is needed for a "full install" + breather room, which is most newbie freindly way of trying out linux.

That way you don't forget any developement packages or services or anything like that that you may need but not realise you need.

Obviously you'd want more space if you can get it!

 

[MournSanity]

SUSE had the easiest partition and dual boot installation I have ever seen. It did it all automatically.

 

[Codyz28]

Thanks all! Sounds easy enough. I will have a 160 gb hard drive when I get my system.

 

[drag]

just remember to install WinXP first and leave unpartitioned space.

 

[duragezic]

If you're looking to game on linux then don't bother, well their is some support but use linux for your work tasks and windows for gaming... that's why there's dual boot. I installed linux just so I can do some programming in it and remote login to the univ computer so that now I can do some java projects without going down to the CS labs. w00t!