Please help. I want to install linux O.S. in my computer. I already have windows XP. I would like to know...

Question

Is it possible to have 2 operating system in one computer. If possible, I would like to know how to install linux operating system free of charge.
What i want is that my computer should start with windows xp O.S. But in case of system getting corrupted, i should be able to switch to linux operating system. My computer make is intel supported 2.66 ghz 40 gb hard disk.

Answer 1

Well you need to empty one of your drive, Always remember First windows are installed then linux. Empty the drive free the partition by deleting it using a bootable disk and run command "fdisk" or use partition magic 8, now dowload linux from some site or the CDs you have make sure the disks are ok. Otherwise you need to reinstall the windows again in repair mode where it detects the OS and follow steps their further.

put disk-1 of linux it will boot and now follow some steps such it probes for monitor and mouse,Now comes the crucial steps:

if you are looking for learning linux and still want to spend much of your time Windows 10-15GB will be enough as Linux will itself takes 4GB - 6 GB depending on the packages you want to install from RPM(Red Hat Packet manager). Now choose the option to install on linux partiton...also make linux partiton automatically

there are three partions a linux sytem will use
1)swap space is keept double of the RAM of your system
2)a root partiton with '\'(100Mb is enough)
3)home partiton(where your data will be kept)

go next set time and date
Use customize options to install the package. look for the options you want to install, the programming packages and other tools.

Install Grub as the bootloader and choose check dos option for default OS. Sit back until it ask for a CD

I told you about red-hat. Recommend you fedora Linux. fedora -6 is latest but chk ur system requirement as fedora 5 requires 512MB RAM.

Also try googling you will get lot more

thanku

Saurabh

Answer 2

Have a partition of around 10 GB for Linux, install Linux onto that. Linux installs a boot loader on the top of Windows' default Boot Loader. You can define Windows as your Default OS in Linux boot loader and Windows will start by default every time you boot your computer. In case of any problem with Windows you can select Linux from the Boot Load and boot it any time.

Answer 3

The simplest way is to have two partitions on your hard drive or two separate physical drives. Then when you go to install Linux you'll have to choose the new partition you just created to install linux. Check out this site to create a new partition
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

Then in your BIOS, the first start up screen when you computer is booting, you can choose which partition to boot off of the windows one or the linux one.

You should be able to get around reformatting your whole hard drive.

Answer 4

No WUBI needed. No external tool needed at all. Almost *every* Linux distro will recognise the existence of a Windows distribution already in place, and automatically create a Boot select menu for using (using a tool called GRUB). That way each boot you can choose, or set it to automatically run one or the other after a few seconds. Try Mint or Xubuntu or Ubuntu. :-)

Answer 5

I think you have at least drives,XP is installed in c: drive.then you can install linux in another drive,before installing Linux in another drive take backup of data that drive.If you know Linux installation then you can set XP as default operating system to boot.

if you don't know much about Linux. download the "freespire" linux


http://www.distromania.com/distro_info.php?distro=612

OR
"knoppix" linux
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

this is linux operating system,write this os to cd.Using this cd you can use linux os without installation.

Answer 6

if your HDD has partitions you can install linux in other partition if you dont have you have to format HDD and make partions then install linux

Answer 7

if your HDD has partitions you can install linux in other partition .
If you dont have you have to format HDD and make partions then install linux

Answer 8

You would need to format your hard drive and than partion it.
Or get 2 hard drives

Answer 9

not sure about this...but i dont think you need to have a second hard disk coz nowadays multiOS enivironments are possible