Linux dual-booting

[rallynavvie]

I just started getting into Linux by reading up on its abilities and programs that are out for it and I've been wanting to install it on one of my many computers here, but mostly to run a hardware firewall for my home office network. For now I'd just like to put it on my digital video workstation to play with occasionally and learn how to get around for if/when I ever put it on a dedicated machine.

I heard some people say you need a seperate partition for the OS, but then I heard a friend say you can use GRUB (?) to dual-boot without using seperate partitions. Since my primary boot drive is all a single partition I can't add a partition without an app like PartitionMagic, right? So if I can install Linux without partitioning part of the boot drive I'd rather save the trouble of that (unless it ends up being more trouble later). Otherwise any suggestions on how to dual-boot WinXP and Linux on the same PC?

Eventually I'll be getting a Mac G3 for free from work and I'll put a Linux OS on there. I've been told Yellow Dog is a good OS for Macs? And if any of you are running a Mac with Linux is it possible to dual-boot OSX and Linux? And how is program compatability between PC Linux and Mac Linux? Books can only answer so many of my questions...

[gmatov]

Ralllynavvie,
If you just want to try it, go to SuSe.com and dl SuSe 8.1 (I think) evaluation version. It dls as an iso, burns to a bootable CD, installs minimal files to your PC, and runs from the CD, as a game would, I think. All you need do is set your boot sequence to CD-A-C, play with it to your heart's content.
I've dl'd all the newest distros, about 15 gigs total, Redhat, Mandrake, Caldera, etc, some are as much as 8 CDs full. The downside is no tech support.
Oh, yes. Most flavors come with partitioning utility which will make a partition nondestructively, as well as a boot manager.

[rallynavvie]

I've got a version of RedHat on CDs. I think it has fdisk for partitioning but it sounds pretty complicated. But then these things sound complicated and then you get into them and they're not so bad. Do I even need to create a seperate partition for Linux? It sounds like I don't even have to. Or maybe I can boot Linux from one of the SCSI HDDs? I'm not particularly fond of PartitionMagic since it isn't compatable with NTFS, at least version 8 that I have isn't. I'd rather not have a FAT16 partition just for that app.

[gmatov]

Sure, you can install to a separate drive, same as any other OS, and, same, it will write the bootloader to the C:\ drive, giving you an arrow key choice at bootup. If the drive isn't needed for anything else, the setup should automatically format it with all the partitions you need. If you have other stuff on it, you'll still have to partition it. The newer versions make it easier every time.

[sterno]

Eventually I'll be getting a Mac G3 for free from work and I'll put a Linux OS on there. I've been told Yellow Dog is a good OS for Macs? And if any of you are running a Mac with Linux is it possible to dual-boot OSX and Linux? And how is program compatability between PC Linux and Mac Linux?

Yellow Dog is pretty good, yes, though it sometimes inherits bugs from Red Hat (it's almost the same as Red Hat, but for PowerPC instead of Intel). You can dual-boot OS X (or Mac OS 9) with Linux. Most of the time the same software is available regardless of what hardware platform you're on (one of the benefits of open-source software), but if you want precompiled software you'll have to make sure you get the ppc build for the G3 and the i386 build for the PC. There is also less precompiled software available for the ppc, since it's not as common.

[gmatov]

At the same time, Mac OS is supposed to be derived from UNIX, and fairly close to Linux, at least a heck of a lot more than Windows. You should have no big problems with it.

[vh5150]

I've got a version of RedHat on CDs. I think it has fdisk for partitioning but it sounds pretty complicated. But then these things sound complicated and then you get into them and they're not so bad. Do I even need to create a seperate partition for Linux? It sounds like I don't even have to. Or maybe I can boot Linux from one of the SCSI HDDs? I'm not particularly fond of PartitionMagic since it isn't compatable with NTFS, at least version 8 that I have isn't. I'd rather not have a FAT16 partition just for that app.

Partition Magic can be used just to partition some free space for linux. Make around 3 gigs minimum to about 10 if you plan on playing Windoze games in linux. You don't need to format the partition since both Mandrake and Red Hat can do it for you. The partition can be primary or logical depending if you already have an OS on it.

I have XP Pro (10GB) on my first drive in a primary partition and Red Hat 9 (10GB) on a logical partition with the remaining free space (35+GB) as a FAT 32 storage area on a 60GB drive. I had triple boot 98SE, 2000 Pro and Mandrake for quite some time.

If you can boot to a SCSI drive then you can install any OS to it. As far as booting from a IDE drive then have the boot manager load linux from the SCSI drive there should be no problem. I couldn't tell you since I do not have SCSI drives.

Red Hat is good for newbies as well as Mandrake. Especially if you want Mandrake to "see" your windows drives. Red Hat does not do that "out of the box". You'd have to do some work in a terminal window similar to a DOS box AND you'd have to get NTFS rpms (Red Hat don't support NTFS) AND you'd have to get XMMS rpms to play mp3s.

Mandrake reads NTFS drives (read only) and FAT32 (read/write) without configuration. And XMMS plays mp3s. Xine plays divx too.

PartitionMagic 8 does work with NTFS drives.

If you do want to try Linux then I suggest Mandrake because of the previous points. http://www.mandrakelinux.com
You can try Red Hat too if you want to. I also suggest you try http://www.linux.org
http://www.justlinux.com formerly http://www.linuxnewbie.org
http://www.linuxcentral.com
http://www.linux.com
http://www.tuxgames.com