hard drive partitions and OS

[U-Toast]

Ok here are the questions:
I have 2 20 gig HD at my dads. i just reformated and reinstalled windows xp on a 7 gig partition. nothing else is partitioned. I wanted to install linux on a new partition. But im not shour what do do. If i should install linux on the same hd, and have all my programs on the other?

Also i was wondering if all the programs i install on windows will work with linux, cuz im not shur if it uses ntfs or something else?

How would i go doing this?

Thankyou for the help

 

[sithspawn]

its best just to have a dual boot with linux. And no they dont use the same filesystem. In fact, after you have installed linux, if you want to put windows xp back on there (if you installed linux on the whole drive) you have to get a utility to set all the drives bits to 0, or else windows XP cant read the HD!!!

http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

thats a good article on how to do this. read through there. what flavour of linux are you thinking about putting on??

youll also find that for every program on windows, there is an equal (free) program on linux. ie, winamp = xmms. msn/yahoo/aol/icq = gaim. windows media = mplayer

all these alternate programs look very similair to the ones on linux. if you use gentoo as your linux version its as simple as typing emerge gaim, emerge mplayer and so on to download and install these proggies

 

[U-Toast]

so il have to reinstall every thing il want on linux so i can read it there? and if i boot in linux, i can access the files that i can on windows right?

 

[U-Toast]

what flavor would u recommend? i dont know what are the differences

 

[sithspawn]

definately gentoo. it is very configurable and easy to use.
www.gentoo.org
read up on the documentation. And i dont really understand your question. If you have a dual boot, youll just be asked at boot which os you want to boot up in. if you want to keep all your video files on windows, thats fine, they will still be there. It is possible to transfer files between the two os's but it can be a little complicated. You cant just open a file and have it all there like you can in windows if you have two partitions. If you could be a bit more specific maybe i will be able to help you a bit more.

 

[U-Toast]

ok, lemme explain better
I have 2 hard drives
1st one: 20 gig, 1 partition 7 gig (c windows installed on it.
rest unpartitioned space
2nd 20 gig hard drive, all unpartitioned.
ok now 1st thing. where would it be better to install linux? on a 2nd partition on HD1? or install it on HD2
Then lets say i download and install spybot search and destroy on window, and linux is on the same hd as windows, will i be able to run it on linux? or do i need to download some other prog for it?
Also, a lil issue, my pc here dpoesnt have a cd burner. Is there a way to install it without burning the iso? If not, il put it on the network, and go on dads pc and burn it there.
Also, yes i want dual boot, but it should ask me when i download no? so thats ok

Thankyou, hope u understand better

Iv been thinking of suse 9.1

 

[sithspawn]

well i cant give you any specifics of suse 9.1 so i cant help you there. maybe xotix can give u some advice on that.

But i can answer a couple of questions. First of all, you should probably decide what you want to use linux and windows for. ie, which one you want to be your main os, then you can decide which one to give most of the space too. A dual boot is not a given thing, and is somethign you have to set up yourself. The link i provided a couple of posts up is a good one and is how i set mine up.

for your set up i would slave off the second hard drive, install both os's on the first one, format the second one using NTFS (so is usable by windows AND can be mounted by linux to share files), give both os about 10 gigs on first drive.

 

[sithspawn]

oh, and it is not necessary to burn the iso, but as a (first time??) user of linux i would strongly recommend it as it will make life a hell of a lot easier

 

[U-Toast]

alrighty, hmm man setting up dual boot seems pain is a$$. Could some1 post a step by step newby guide