Windows/Linux laptop

[gorcq]

I'm trying to partition my laptop so it runs either Windows or Linux, and I have two questions that I hope someone can answer.

First, I already have Windows XP installed. Is it possible to partition my drive without destrying my existing files and Windows installation? Well over half of the 37 GB drive is unused, and i thought I would divide it into two 18 GB drives.

Second, my laptop has no CD drive. No extenal drives of any sort, in fact. I have a USB-CD drive, but of course I can't boot from that (I've tried), so I assume I can't install Linux from it. There's an option in BIOS to boot from LAN, but I don't know how that works. Any suggestions to solve this problem are appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[techieMoe]

I'm trying to partition my laptop so it runs either Windows or Linux, and I have two questions that I hope someone can answer.

First, I already have Windows XP installed. Is it possible to partition my drive without destrying my existing files and Windows installation? Well over half of the 37 GB drive is unused, and i thought I would divide it into two 18 GB drives.

Yes, most distributions will give you the option to shrink your existing XP partition and use the freed space. If the installer can't do it for you, you can use something like the GPartEd live CD.

GParted -- LiveCD

Just a note, you might want to defragment your XP drive before you do this just to lessen the chance that XP has a piece of a file thrown far off into your empty space.

Second, my laptop has no CD drive. No extenal drives of any sort, in fact. I have a USB-CD drive, but of course I can't boot from that (I've tried), so I assume I can't install Linux from it. There's an option in BIOS to boot from LAN, but I don't know how that works. Any suggestions to solve this problem are appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

That might be a problem. I'm not entirely sure what to do in that case, but hang on. Perhaps someone else can come up with a workaround.

[oz]

No CD drive...?

Ok, you could look at Unetbootin to see if it would install Linux for you, then you could delete Windows after the fact.

[gorcq]

Or, I could not delete Windows after the fact. Thanks, ozar, this Unetbootin looks like exactly what I need.

One other thing. I have a certain amount of experience with Ubuntu, so I'm thinking of installing that. But I really don't know what the difference is between the various available distributions, so if anyone has a good reason why I should use a different one, I'd be very interested to hear it.

[oz]

so if anyone has a good reason why I should use a different one, I'd be very interested to hear it.

Sorry about the delete windows option... I misread your post.

Ubuntu is probably about as good as any to try as your first distro. It's one of the most popular distros out there, but of course that doesn't mean that you'll like it. The only way to know for sure is to try it.

Have fun with Linux.