Hybrid Environment

[john_sm]

Hey Guys, I am still in a thinking stage and will like to learn from your experience, and was wondering if any of you folks have a hybrid environment i.e. Linux and Proprietary systems and what kind of issues do you run into. And also, what pieces of technology you have - which are open source and which ones you have are proprietary and any changes you anticipate 1 year out. Greatly appreciate your help. - John Smith

[Cabhan]

The practice of dual-booting is pretty common for new Linux users, and users who don't want to give up Windows completely (say, for gaming, or because they need a particular piece of software). This is where you install Linux and another OS side by side, and choose which to run when you boot your computer.

It is pretty easy to do this: it requires unpartitioned space, which means you need to either erase everything and start from scratch, or use special software to resize your partitions in place. Once you've done that, you just install the new OS.

There are many, many guides to dual-booting around, and I'm sure there are many even on this site.