Putting Linux on a Laptop with Windows XP on it?

AARRRGH

Hello All,

I want to stick Linux on my Laptop. I already have XP on it and don't want to format.

Can I do this?

If so, what distribution do you recommend?

My laptop is a Dell, about 1 year old.

I'm also on Irish Broadband (Breeze). Will this work on Linux?

Thank you

angelofdeath

yes you can dual boot, use partition magic to resize your xp partition, say if its a 40gig hd, give linux half or whatever and a tip, if you want to use files between the two operating systems set up with partition magic a fat32 partition, because both operating systems will be able to read and write to it

then boot up your linux install cd and during installation itll set up the linux partitions on the free space

you might need to do a little editing of a text document to do with setting up grub, the bootloader correctly but its not very hard

as for which distro to go for, suse, ubuntu, fedora would be the easier ones to start off with

Ste-

Yes most installers will configure your pc to have both OS's running on it.
Any distro would be handy for you, but maybe as you are starting off try Mandrake,Suse,Ubuntu or Fedora. It's all about choice.

As for the wireless, you'll need to find out what devices etc it uses and google a little.
IIRC Mutant Fruit has the same IBB and ran Linux maybe speak to him ? Or if he can shed any light on it.

As always before installing LInux backup your data first just in case.

tempest

Mandrake or Suse will do the re-partitioning for you (It will even create the FAT32 partition if you want, as recommended above) as part of the install process so to avoid having to get your hands on another partition tool like partition magic I'd go with one of these. I don't know if Ubuntu supports partitioning (I think it does) and I'm pretty sure that Fedora doesn't in that I couldn't find the option myself.

Be careful with Mandrake if you choose it because the default behaviour (for some strange reason) is to overwrite the Windows partition (i.e. use all of the disk).

Personally I find suse has the best installer with Mandrake running a close second. Fedora is nice to use but as I said I don't think the installer will do the partitioning.

Capt'n Midnight

If you have a second partition on the drive ( ) happy days.

If you only have C: you would have to resize, clean out any files you don't need , and defrag and backup the partition.

I'd recomend you get a copy of Knoppix (or other bootable cd in the distro you want knoppix is the one for debian) - you can boot up and let it do the HW scan, you have ntfsresize as well (backup the partition table as in man gpart - or if you have fat32 on the drive you could try a "poor mans install" this is where knoppix uses loadlin.exe to start it up from an image on the drive , you can also have a persistant home folder and swap file on the fat32 drive - no partitioning needed

AARRRGH

Thank you for your comments.

I've been looking at the Mandrake and Suse webpages.

Hmmm. I used to use Linux about 6 years ago (yeah, it's been a while.)

Mandrake and Suse are no longer free?? Am I missing something here...?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

mneylon

I'm currently running Ubuntu on my laptop.

Over the past year it has seen:
- suse
- mandrake
- debian
- ubuntu

There may have been some flavour of redhat on there, but I don't remember

Rambo

dublindude wrote:

Hello All,

I want to stick Linux on my Laptop. I already have XP on it and don't want to format.

Can I do this?

If so, what distribution do you recommend?

My laptop is a Dell, about 1 year old.

I'm also on Irish Broadband (Breeze). Will this work on Linux?

Thank you

I have linux on My laptop I am using Fedora core 3 it work great
here is a doc I wrote my installing Fedora core and windows XP dule boot

http://homepage.eircom.net/%7Etrevorodunne/Laptop.html

if you or based in dublin I would recommand this link to download the version of linux you want

ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/

Having dual booted Fedora core 3 and Xp ive a little warning for everyone.

Don't Install GRUB on the MBR

On my system it totally nuked the partition table rendering the XP partition unbootable.
I tried the recovery console to try repair the MBR and all the other partition repair options to no avail. The only practical solution is to reinstall windows loosing the NT partition. Apparently this is a known issuse in Fedora C3 and some other distros. If you are going to go with Fedora Core3 let XP boot it for you and for gods sake backup first (unlike me who lost alot of stuff).

I used this method and now XP and Fedora C3 play nice together

Rambo

ronoc wrote:

Having dual booted Fedora core 3 and Xp ive a little warning for everyone.

Don't Install GRUB on the MBR

On my system it totally nuked the partition table rendering the XP partition unbootable.
I tried the recovery console to try repair the MBR and all the other partition repair options to no avail. The only practical solution is to reinstall windows loosing the NT partition. Apparently this is a known issuse in Fedora C3 and some other distros. If you are going to go with Fedora Core3 let XP boot it for you and for gods sake backup first (unlike me who lost alot of stuff).

I used this method and now XP and Fedora C3 play nice together

I had no problem with Fedora core 3. dule booting
fedora core 2 had problems alright but should be fixed with fedora 3