Thinking of installing Linux as second OS

[scsa20]

like the title says, I was thinking of linstalling LInux as a second OS. what I was going to do is use something like PartitionMagic to resize the partiton to install Linux on, but my question is, which linux should I use?? right now I'm downloading Red Hat but now I'm thinking of getting Mandrake... What's your take about those 2 linux?? and if you think of another one that's better please do add that in here...

another question: What do you do to Multi-boot with XP??

thanks for your answers ahead of time.

 

[SPeedY_B]

if you're new to linux i'd definately recommend Mandrake over redhat, its great for getting in to linux.
As for the multi-boot, if you have a 40gb drive, and with partition magic you resize your windows partition to 30gb (AFTER defragmenting!) then install Mandrake on the 10gb of newly created free space, during install mandrake will ask you to install either grub or lilo, these are the boot loaders, which are basically text menu's which appear at boot time and allow you to pick which o/s you wish to boot. Once you select one of the two Mandrake sets the rest up automatically.
Note that upon the first reboot after installing mandrake the menu will NOT show and instead mandrake will boot.

 

[scsa20]

Originally posted by SPeedY_B
if you're new to linux i'd definately recommend Mandrake over redhat, its great for getting in to linux.
As for the multi-boot, if you have a 40gb drive, and with partition magic you resize your windows partition to 30gb (AFTER defragmenting!) then install Mandrake on the 10gb of newly created free space, during install mandrake will ask you to install either grub or lilo, these are the boot loaders, which are basically text menu's which appear at boot time and allow you to pick which o/s you wish to boot. Once you select one of the two Mandrake sets the rest up automatically.
Note that upon the first reboot after installing mandrake the menu will NOT show and instead mandrake will boot.

okey, more questions: can linux read NTFS?? Can NTFS read whatever Linux uses?? When resizing the partition, what File System should I format it as?? What's the different's between those 2 boot loaders?? Why won't it show the boot menu after the first reboot??

sorry for all this questions, as you can see, I'm a big huge number when it comes to installing a different OS other the MS Windows and set it up as a mult-boot

 

[SPeedY_B]

1. Linux can read ntfs...read only though, no (stable) write access is available at the moment.

2. no, ntfs/windows can't read a linux partition (usually ext2 / ext3 / xfs / ffs)

3. you dont need a format when resizing, simply make the partition windows is on smaller, then you will be left with a 'gap' of free space at the end of the drive, mandrake will see this and you can install it in the 'gap'

4. the 2 boot loaders are basically like different linux distributions, they do the same job, but everyone has they're own preferance, lilo can be used in either text mode or graphical mode, and grub is just text mode, i personally use grub, i have nothing against lilo and would install it, but i just prefer grub

5. it wont show after the first reboot as it wants to get you into linux, same as windows really, after installing it goes into the o/s. So once mandrake is installed it'll eject your cd, reboot and boot into linux, once loaded you can simply reboot if you dont want to use it straight away and you will then be prompted with your boot loader.

Asking questions is always good, should always research something before trying it (i know i did ) and im always glad to try and help people with linux

 

[scsa20]

okey, hopefully this well be my last questions... why only 10 GB for the second partiton?? how much would there be lefted after installing it on that 10 GB partition??

dang, I ask too much questions but hey, that's how you learn ^_^

and thanks again

 

[SPeedY_B]

the 10gb was just an example, a linux install should -really- take no more than 2gb, but i always like to give room for expansion, personally when i first installed mandrake i dedicated 10gb to it as i have plenty of un-used space on here

You should be able to use around the 2/3gb mark though, it depends how much space you have really, as to how much you "give up" for linux.

You dont ask too many questions, linux is a complicated thing to learn if you are used to windows. i was oringinally told about linux by a friend who explained the installation procedure to me, so the basics where taught to me from the start. if it wasnt for him i wouldnt have a clue

 

[scsa20]

lol, well... I have 2 hard drives, my C Drive is a 40 GB (and I have 27.3 GB free) and a D drive that is a 80 GB (and I have 20.3 GB free) so I was thinking (my D drive is more of a junk drive but I have alot of stuff on there that I need to go thru.) of spleteing up the C and keep 5GB open (unless I can clean up enough on my D to open up 10 GB on that drive )

 

[SPeedY_B]

heh, sounds like a plan to me!
You should be fine with 5gb, as long as you dont install EVERYTHING that comes with mandrake.
Before you use partition magic make sure you defragment the drive, this way all data is moved to the start of the drive and shouldn't be affected by resizing the partition.

 

[scsa20]

lol, I'll do that once I download the ISOs and after burning them to CDs

tell me, what does comes with mandrake?? does it have some programming tools?? ^_^

 

[SPeedY_B]

it'd take me a year to list the packages that come with mandrake, thats the beauty of linux SO much software comes with the default installs, as far as i know mandrake does include programming tools, you have to choose to install them from the package selector, as they're not selected by default.

 

[scsa20]

sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

thanks a bunch for all this information

 

[SPeedY_B]

Just popped onto the mandrake site and found the package list.
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/9.0/presentation/15.php3

Enjoy...

 

[scsa20]

that'll take me awhile to go thru.

 

[SPeedY_B]

theres plenty of handy stuff in there, but also theres a lot of crap you dont need

 

[scsa20]

lol, once again, thanks

 

[SPeedY_B]

no problem, always glad to help where i can

 

[scsa20]

more questions:

do I need to burn all 3 ISOs?? how exlatly do I start installing it??

there site (or anywhere else) has clear statement on how to install it

 

[SPeedY_B]

For a beginner it would be best to burn all 3, you're not restricted on the packages you install that way.

to start installing (after the partition magic stuff ) insert the 1st cd, there's actually an installation guide on the disc in html format, but its really as simple as installing windows, once the CD is in the drive, re-boot you're machine and it should boot from cd, once thats done you will get a Graphical interface guiding you through the installation, its just as easy as windows from that point, as mandrake has little help windows at the bottom of the screen explaining whats going on and what the different options mean.

 

[SPeedY_B]

theres a nice install guide / feature on the mandrake site available here http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/demos/Demo/Mandrake9.0/Install/

 

[digitalmelon]

Just thought I'd toss something into the ring here guys. Just installed the new RedHat 8.0. It has a very nice, clean interface and the menu are fairly well organized. Also OpenOffice is included in the distro. RedHat used to be a bear to set up and hard for newbies to work with but now there are graphical interfaces for most things that used to be difficult to set up such as Samba(SWAT) which allows you to share a linux drive on a windows network. The bare bones RedHat install still runs well over a gig and the full install is close to 4 gigabytes and that is just with the 3 installation ISOs. There are 2 other ISOs that contain development and source rpms.

I just did a full install on a 466 Celeron machine and everything works peachy. I even got SAMBA running last night and can now access shares on the linux box from my Windows XP box. That just amazes me that I was able to set that up!

scsa20 you may also want to consider Lycoris as a distribution if you are a newbie. It has everything that you need for a personal workstation...will autodetect cams, scanners and networks. It sets most everything up in the install automatically. Its a pretty impressive distro but offers no development tools. Strictly for personal use although I imagine you could install Apache etc on it.

Anyway, good luck!