Fedora Core 2

I have a question. Me being a newbie to linux I was wondering about the fedora core project. I don't have linux on my computer yet, but I did download the .iso file for knoppix and have been messing around with it so that I don't have to partion my hard drive. My question is do I have to partion my hard drive to use Fedora or can I just run it off a disk? Also if I buy an external hard drive can I do a dual boot like that and have Fedora on the external? Thanks

normally fedora is meant to be installed, but of course like any other distro you could make your own "live-cd" (although you'd have to install it first)

as for the extern drive.
it should be possible if your computer is able to boot from that drive. (this is hardware / bios dependent) but you should use a boot floppy for fedora then, and don't install grub or lilo on your internal hdd.