Dual Booting The System

[Spyder32]

Yeah, but wouldn't installing a second hard drive with another OS be more difficult and strenuous? I think I'm going to stick to partitioning the box I have for now, but thanks for the advice. So does anyone know where I can download a good partition magic-type application?

[Zonewalker]

I'm going to go with grunt... I really would recommend you get a second HD spyder - doesn't need to be huge at this stage. It isn't more strenuous installing linux on the second HD you just have to be careful and make sure which drive you're putting the linux partitions on (should be on /dev/hdb rather than /dev/hda). install lilo (or whatever you use) to the boot sector on hda i.e. your first drive... or alternatively install it to floppy disc (that way if you do ***** the boot manager up, its a bit its easier to get back into windows to get on the net find out what you did wrong and correct it)

Z

edit

this may help
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/l...-dualboot.html

[Socialist]

Alot of time you can call a local mom and pop computer shop and get a 10gig hd from them for really cheap. Also try calling a local university and ask the CS department if they have some for donation.

Also on a older machine you would want your swap as the first partition allowing for faster access increasing the speed of it.

Dual booting with a fat32 partition allows for rw access from linux as well.

Another though is that if you alot the space (resizing it) and leave in un-partitioned I belive the newest Debian will detect windows, use the remaining space without touching the fat32 partition and even enter a entry into fstab so that it is auto-mounted each time.

[cgkanchi]

Socialist, many distros now do that. Redhat did it as early as 7. Spyder, I'd recommend that you simply install over an existing partition. Delete/move all files on it to another partition, delete it using diskdrake/diskdruid/fdisk/whatever, make two partitions (linux and swap) in its place and install linux. Heck, it doesn't even matter if it's a logical partition and not a primary partition. Linux isn't too fussy about that kinda stuff.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

[s4b3r]

Well, keep in mind, there is ALWAYS a risk, of the HD getting formatted, but when i was installing mandrake on my windows box, i did not load any programs, same with fedora, and debian, they come with a program called "qtparted", which i find being the best, i hope this helps

[Spyder32]

Hrmm, well if there's a risk that the HD can be formatted then I'll just make a backup of my stuff that's not an issue. I'm not going to buy a second HD, I'm just going to partition the one I have and follow fyrewall's info. That doesn't seem that hard. Anyway's, I gotta download the iso's first and that usually take's awhile.