I'm Stuck

[caboose]

Hi everyone.

Alright, here is the situation:
I like linux, from what I have tried, I have found a distro that I like and I want to install it on my laptop.
Problem: My laptop has windows, all all of my files and programs, etc. on there.

I want to install linux, to work with Windows, so I can keep my important files at least long enough to find some way to transfer them over.

Every time I go to install linux, I hesitate, and chicken out because I don't understand the instalation process too well, and am worried I will lose everything.

Sounds like a stupid problem, but can someone please help me start to use linux as a solution?

[GNU-Fan]

Hi,

whenever you are going to install any new operating system, you should backup the old files on a USB stick or DVD first.

Then I recommend you attend a meeting of a Linux User Group near you. They will be happy to help you out in person. Bring along your laptop, installation media will be available already.
About Linux Australia | Linux Australia

But remember to backup first. If I am asked to install a new OS for somebody, my first question is always: Did you do a backup of your important files, Sir/Ma'am?

[joaquin386]

If you are not sure or dont want to install it over your windows (creating a new partition) use the VMWARE.

You use a virtual Linux until you are confident enough to install it on your computer.

[devils casper]

Which Linux distro are you planning to install?

Installation process is very easy. First of all, let us know about distro of your choice. We will post step by step installation instructions.

[caboose]

I am planning to install Puppy Linux.

Also, I have had a look at VMWare, and it looks to me to be a purely business solution.

I may be wrong, but is there a simple VMWARE for a one laptop?

Thanks

[HROAdmin26]

VMware Player and VMware Server are both free and are fine for a single user. VMware Workstation is available but not free.

[devils casper]

Puppy Linux is a light weight distro and work fine in old machines. Could you post your machine's spces?

Have you downloaded .iso image of Puppy Linux and burned it to CD?

[sixdrift]

Honestly it depends on what you want to do with the computer as well as the computer specs as to what distro you should choose. If you go with Puppy, it will have a very different feel to it than others like Ubuntu or Mint. Basically you can do the following to ensure a smooth dual-boot installation.

1) back up your critical data
2) plan ahead on how much of your hard drive you want to leave in Windows and how much you want to allocate to Linux - or add more storage.
3) consider your system specs against the performance of the distro - more than 1 GB of RAM and CPU > 1 GHz go with full distro, otherwise ask around about performance on your system specs.
4) download and burn the iso for each distro that interests you and boot your system in live mode to make sure they work and you like them.
5) check out the online howto docs about dual-booting modern distros, mostly about the disk partitioning step.
6) finally boot the distro and follow on-screen installation steps - if you did 2 & 3 from this list, you should be ready.

One last caveat. If you have any funky hardware that may not have drivers, and you need it or can't replace it, think carefully about what you want to do.

[caboose]

It's okay, I'm going to use VMware for now.

Thanks heaps for the help

[sixdrift]

Ok, you are going to use VMware for virtualization. But which distro of Linux are you going with?