Linux,what is the distro that allows you to boot from windows desktop??Or Linux advice needed

[spaceman]

i want to give linux a try,im back in college in the IT program(studio art wasnt cutting it financially).Anyhoo ive heard of a version of linux that installs right in a windows directory and can be run from there.Or should i buy a seperate hdd for linux?If so how big will be sufficient?Which distro should i use?How difficult is it to do a dual boot using linux?

yep another noob needing advice.

 

[ineedsleep]

I believe the distro you're talking about is reddog or yellow dog... hmm.... it had dog in it for sure.... just can't remember the color

To eXPerience the full LINUX effect - purchase a harddrive < 10 gigs should do it.
The distro is a personal thing that I've found... everybody has their favorites and stand by them. Personally - I find that RedHat is one of the most polished versions - Slackware will teach you the most - Mandrake is easiest if you want a windows type system (each configuration has a gui). Corel is too old and will take too long to update. Caldera is very polished as well.

Dual booting a system is a breeze with LILO - I would suggest that you already have an OS installed such as WIN something then install Linux as LILO will be setup when you install.

Hope this helps...

 

[spaceman]

thnx for the advice bro where do i find LILO?

 

[Bakwetu]

Winlinux starts from within windows and can be deleted as a regular program. The best thing is to have it on a separate partition though. I had problems getting my geforce 2 mx recognised, but that was with an older version of winlinux.

 

[ineedsleep]

<< where do i find LILO? >>



LILO comes with almost every distro...

 

[Shack70]

Mandrake makes a version for windows. Basically it makes a huge swap file and when you click on it, it reboots into this swap file. I've heard of ppl having problems with this version and windows gets corrupted. your best bet is to dual boot. Mandrake is very easy to set up and installs LILO so that you dual boot with no probs. Just install Winows first. You will need at least 2 more partitions on for the OS and one for a swap. The best tool you can get to help you out is partition magic.

 

[ScottMac]

I believe Red Hat 7.1 (and probably earlier) has what they call a "Partitionless" installation. My recollection is that it installs onto an existing FATXX partition.

FWIW

Scott