Installation Advice Wanted

[DeaducK]

Hi. I've bought a new laptop SONY VAIO VGN-N365E with Windows Home Premium installed. I want to have a dual boot windows xp and a version of linux...either "scientific linux" or fedora core 5. But I'm away from my country (studying)...and this laptop is my life right now. I do know how to format and install but I don't want to risk having it not working and then send it for repairs.

Is there any way I can find out if this will fully support fedora core 5...or more like with fedora core 5 fully support all the hardware of this model?

[Dapper Dan]

Hi. I've bought a new laptop SONY VAIO VGN-N365E with Windows Home Premium installed. I want to have a dual boot windows xp and a version of linux...either "scientific linux" or fedora core 5.

Hi DeaducK and welcome. May I ask if this is your first time trying Linux? If so, it is my belief that Fedora Core is not a real user friendly first distro. It's more of a distro for users with more Linux experience. I've never used Scientific.

I would recommend you consider a much easier distro for a new user like Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS or SuSE. The great news with Ubuntu is that it runs as a live CD so you can fire it up and see how you like it and whether it plays nice with your laptop's hardware. If so, just install it to disk. A thorough defrag of Windows is always recommended in all cases before resizing to make room for Linux partitions.

[DeaducK]

Well I'm not totally new. I've used Ubuntu before. The live cd is a good idea thankyou!

I wasn't given a vista cd with the laptop. I do have recovery disc(s) made though. Its currently partitioned into one drive only.

Is there a partition software that I can use to partition out some drives from the C space so that I may install linux? I hope it doesnt damage the current partition. And if it does damage it, or I have to format the entire hard disk, will the recover disks be enough to bring back the os?

I really wanted to get XP instead though...vista eats up too much ram. but the sony guys said that xp wont be compatible with this hardware....which probably means...you do it at your own risk i guess.

ofcourse if i had a linux partition id just be using that.

Also I heard somethng about vista not being compatible with other o/s s in a dual boot environment. I hope this isnt true.

[sandler]

Can use Microsoft Virtual PC or WMWare Workstation to add Linux as a virtual machine..

Well I'm not totally new. I've used Ubuntu before. The live cd is a good idea thankyou!

I wasn't given a vista cd with the laptop. I do have recovery disc(s) made though. Its currently partitioned into one drive only.

Is there a partition software that I can use to partition out some drives from the C space so that I may install linux? I hope it doesnt damage the current partition. And if it does damage it, or I have to format the entire hard disk, will the recover disks be enough to bring back the os?

I really wanted to get XP instead though...vista eats up too much ram. but the sony guys said that xp wont be compatible with this hardware....which probably means...you do it at your own risk i guess.

ofcourse if i had a linux partition id just be using that.

Also I heard somethng about vista not being compatible with other o/s s in a dual boot environment. I hope this isnt true.