linux and windows?

Question

well i want to know if i can have linux and window son the same computer and i dont want to buy another hard drive can i do this withought destroying my pc and wehere can i download it and how thanks

also how do you split your hard drive step by step instructions please

Answer 1

Yes, you can dual boot Linux. It is very easy and you don't need to buy any additional software, Linux distributions already come with everything you need to set up a dual boot computer.

I'm currently dual booting Windows XP and Xandros Linux 4.0. Before I got Xandros I was dual booting Windows XP and SuSe Linux 10.1.

I will walk you through the steps to dual boot your Windows XP system.

1. Windows must be installed on your hard drive first before you install another OS. This is because Windows will only take over the entire hard drive.

2. Disable Windows Virtual Memory.

3. Defrag your hard drive.

4. Put the Linux boot CD in your ROM drive.

5. Restart your computer.

6. Linux will analyze your system and suggest the number of partitions and partition sizes. Some like SuSe will suggest a Windows partition, a root partition, and a user or home partition. Others like Xandros will just create a Windows and a Linux partition.

7. Accept suggested partitions. Believe it or not Linux really does know best.

8. Finish installation and reboot.

9. After your PC goes through post you will see a screen that ask you what OS you would like to boot.

10. Use the arrows to select Linux or Windows. If you do not choose an OS after a few seconds you will automatically boot into Linux by default.

While it is true some installations of Linux are extremely hard to do, other distributions are as easy as selecting left or right handed mouse, keyboard layout, setting date and time and checking for updates.

SuSe took me a couple of hours to install. While Xandros was about 4 mouse clicks and a total of maybe 20 minutes.

The most recommended distributions for people migrating from Windows are:

Ubuntu: uses the Gnome desktop enviroment, is free to download, updates frequently, and is based on the very stable Debian Linux.
http://www.ubuntu.com

Kubuntu: same as above except it uses the KDE desktop enviroment.
http://www.kubuntu.com

Xandros: uses KDE, is based on Debian Linux, cost about $60 and comes with a users guide and stickers to place on your PC. The home Primium edition is packed with proprietary features and a security suite.
http://www.xandros.com

Mandriva: uses KDE, is based on Red Hat Linux, comes with Cedega (allows you to play Windows games), Kapersky Anti-Virus, and LinDVD (the only legal Linux DVD player), it comes in a Linux for beginners package with a manual for people new to Linux and a Linux poweruser package with a manual for advanced users. Figure spending about $40 for the beginner package, and between $70 - $90 for the powerpack.
http://www.mandriva.com

Linspire: uses KDE, has lots of free and commercial software. It is designed to look as much like Windows as possible. It was originally called Lindows until Windows sued them.
http://www.linspire.com

The KDE desktop is a Windows like enviroment. The Gnome enviroment is something different and is prefered by many advanced Linux users.

If you want to know more about Linux distributions go to http://www.distrowatch.com

If you have any other questions feel free to e-mail me and if I don't know something I can at least point you in the right direction.

Answer 2

yes you can! Your prefered linux distro (ubuntu is a good starter) will have a partitioning tool that will make two seperate partitions on the hard drive windows happly on one and linux on the other. This can all be done very easily from the ubuntu installer.

When the computer boots up it will give a choice of windows or linux (you cant run both at the same time...well you can but its not worth the effort involved [generally speaking])

You can make each partition as small or as large as you wish, ie if you have 100gb hd you can have a 50-50 split (50 gb ea) or 40-60 or whatever works best for you needs.

Enjoy linux soon youll end up not wanting to use windows at all at which point you can do away with that windows partition and have some more free space for free linux apps.

Answer 3

There are a variety of ways that you can have both Windows and Linux on the same computer.

The standard method involves re-partitioning the harddrive to include a Linux partition, but that would likely mean erasing files on the drive and reinstalling Windows and all that junk.

There is however at least one Linux distribution that is designed to be installed on a Windows XP harddrive. (No idea if it would work with Vista or not.) I use it on my laptop. Here's the website.
http://www.topologilinux.com/
My laptop is setup so that I can choose whether to boot Linux or Windows XP when it starts up. (By default it will go with Windows XP.) The Linux "drives" are actually stored in files in a folder on the harddrive. That means you'd probably want to have at least 4 Gigs of free space on your harddrive to install this Linux distribution. No repartitioning, no need to reinstall Windows. (And you actually start the install from within Windows. You can actually run Linux while Windows is running, with some limitations. I don't usually run it that way. No sound available and it's a bit slower.)

There are other ways to have access to Linux programs without installing on the harddrive. The most common is called a Live CD. You boot and run Linux from a CD. (Note that transferring files from Linux back to Windows XP is kinda tricky, access to a Fat32 formatted drive or even a floppy disk would help that.)

My desktop is able to boot from a USB drive, so I've got a Linux system that actually boots from a little 2 Gig flash drive. (The website for this distribution is http://www.slax.org )
When I want to boot Linux I just plug the drive into a USB slot and turn the computer on. (Granted, you might have to set the BIOS boot order up, and not all computers support USB booting. My laptop doesn't.) Slax is also available in a Live CD version.

Answer 4

Installing Windows from scratch is much easier than installing Linux from scratch, in my opinion. If nothing else, installing Windows is always the same whereas the different distributions of Linux have their own installation programs (these may even change with different versions of the same distribution). You can't read an article on this however, without it saying how installing Linux is getting easier all the time.

Installing Linux on a computer without an OS is much easier than installing it on a machine with an existing OS that you want to preserve. The later should only be attempted by experts, it is all too easy to lose the pre-existing OS and setting up a dual-boot environment is tricky. In his Linux book, Mark Minasi said that installing Linux on a desktop computer was more likely to be successful than on a laptop computer.

The installation of applications under Windows, while not standardized, is generally consistent. Installing software under Linux varies with each distribution and is not nearly as simple, easy or obvious as Windows. Lindows lets users install software in a manner somewhat like Windows update - applications are downloaded and automatically installed.

Answer 5

The easiest way is a Live CD.

With a Live CD you burn the iso image to a CD and put it in the CD and boot up and voila! you're running Linux. It never writes anything to your hard drive. Take out the CD and reboot and its like nothing ever happened.

For Live CDs I would suggest Knoppix and Ubuntu. If you want to get really cool you can even install it on a flash drive and set your BIOS to boot to the flash drive.

On Ubuntu if you run the Live CD it gives you the option to install it. A dual-boot system where you can run Windows and Ubuntu Linux. I think Ubuntu is not as feature packed as the one I run.

I run OpenSUSE Linux. It's five CDs and takes a while to install but its pretty easy to make a dual-boot system and comes with a lot of stuff. Games, GIMP (like Photoshop), Programming tools, etc.


http://www.distrowatch.com

Answer 6

Ok, be prepared to lose all your data. That is the first thing. Especially if you haven't done this before.

Get a linux distro with either grub or lilo. I use grub, some prefer lilo...it doesn't matter if you aren't doing anything spectacular.

For example, openSUSE 10.2 uses grub as the default bootloader. What that is, is it gives you a menu when you boot to ask if you want to boot into windows, or openSUSE.

When you install SUSE (sorry im bias, i like SUSE) it will go through a process where you can shrink the Windows partition and make room for the linux partition (USE EXT3!!! NOT REISER!!!) reiser has given me so many problems with data loss.

This isn't really for the faint of heart and you should get a knoledgable person to help you along. (i.e. some physically with you)

Answer 7

You can partition a single drive for both. I'm not sure how nicely XP will play with this setup so you may need to do some research on that. (XP may need to be on the first partition to work..) but yes, it's possible to install both on one drive.

and Wine isn't the solution for everyone. It can't run everything so unless you're going to be using linux 90% of the time, don't rely on Wine to run all your Windoze Apps.

Answer 8

WINE

http://www.winehq.com/

Answer 9

if you buy an intel mac you can have mac osx..windows xp, linux, and vista all installed and running on the same computer.

Answer 10

Try UBUNTU or XUBUNTU. You can dual boot them with your current Windows OS.