New Install

[karyoker]

Im ready to install on a laptop. It has 80GIG HD and I just deleted a 50 GIG music lib. What I need is dual boot for now with a fat32 part for sharing with other boxes on the lan.. The two options as I see them are..

Do a Linux install over the XP.. With that method can I creates news parts with the install? And leave windows intact....

The other is totally reformatting the whole HD and with either install parting the hard drive.. I think it would be easier to part with Linux but the question is with this option which OS should I install first?

I do like to periodically do a total new install esp with a box I have been on the net with and downloded and tried 40 dozen progs...

Initial responses or suggestions?

[techieMoe]

Do a Linux install over the XP.. With that method can I creates news parts with the install? And leave windows intact....

Yes. In fact, if you can shrink down your NTFS (XP) partition and just leave the rest of the harddrive as unpartitioned empty space the Linux installer should be able to handle all the partition creation/size allocation for you. Most popular distributions have an option for "leave existing partitions and use empty space".

The other is totally reformatting the whole HD and with either install parting the hard drive.. I think it would be easier to part with Linux but the question is with this option which OS should I install first?

Generally MS Windows likes to be installed first. When I'm setting up a dual boot (which honestly I haven't done in a while since I tend to just use a spare harddrive instead), I always install XP first, then Linux, and tweak the Linux bootloader to load XP. Some distributions will set up the XP boot option automatically for you.

[devils casper]

leave 50GB deleted space as it is. unpartitioned/unformatted. install Linux and in Partition Section, select 'Unpartitioned/free space for install'. installer will do the partitioning and formatting stuff. Dual Boot is default in all Linux Distros. accept default options in Boot Loader section.
its a bit complicated to install Windows after Linux Installation. Install Windows first. you can use GParted LiveCD to resize/shrink partition. its one of the best partition manager.




Casper

[karyoker]

Thanks guys Im real familiar now with qparted and gparted. now.. I installed etch and couldnt get ndiswrapper 1,33 to work so I installed sarge and although I did have a little bit of trouble getting a gui screen I flat couldnt get one with the ati on this laptop.. So I installed ubuntu and then found out the ndiswrapper on edgy has an inherent bug.. Wrong version..

So from a newbie Ill give an initaial impression pclinuxos is the easiest to install, the config panel takes alot of the newbie gueesing It was the the first distro I built a lan with both wired and wireless. It was the first one with live cd I comnnected wireless. I happened to download the junior versiomn I am presently downloding the big daddy version Thats the one that will go on the laptop...

From an audio standpoint I tried one called musix which has tons of audio software and tweaks but the latest ver has locale and language problems... It would have been my first choice except for those reasons....