Double booting Vista and openSuSE 10.3

[jrt77]

Has anyone out there tried double booting Vista and openSuSE 10.3?

I am getting ready to install it on some work laptops and I was hoping anyone out there could give me some heads up on any stumbling blocks to look out for.

Thanks in advance,

[devils casper]

Dual boot is default in all Linux ditros. Make sure to create free space for SuSe before starting installation. You can use PartedMagic LiveCD to shrink Vista Partition(s). Create unpartitioned space for SuSe. 10-12GB is enough.

[Jonathan183]

I dual boot Vista and openSUSE 10.3, I did not have any problems setting up dual boot. I did partition before installing openSUSE (using PartedMagic CD on one system and Vista partitioning tool on the other system - both methods worked).
Is there something specifically you are worried about?

[jrt77]

There wasn't anything specific I am worried about yet, I was just asking around to see if anyone had come across anything specific as far as issues were concerned. I am going to be installing openSUSE 10.3 on 6 laptops this weekend, and I am trying to get as prepared as possible.

Do you suggest the 32 bit or the 64 bit version?

[Jonathan183]

I use the 32-bit version but that is because I have a mixture of 32-bit and 64-bit machines, and only downloaded the 32-bit version so far. If you have more than 4GB RAM I think you need the 64-bit version to use it all. i tried the 64 bit version of openSUSE 10.2 for a short time ... it seemed to work OK but i have never run a 32 bit and 64 bit version side by side to see how much difference it really makes.

Are you sure all the machines are 64 bit?
Are the laptops identical?

[jrt77]

All of the machines are 64 bit, but I keep reading that there are still some issues w/ drivers and software so I'm leaning towards the 32 bit version. All of the machines have 2 GB of RAM so I don't have to run 64 at all.

All of the laptops are identical from what I have seen so far, they are all Acer laptops, but I don't know if they all have the same video cards yet. I have looked all around the forums and have found several ways to intall the nVidia driver. I'll keep everyone on this board updated with my progress of getting them all up and running for certain.

Thanks for the advice

[Jonathan183]

You should find the video card quite straight forward ... the instructions are on the openSUSE website. If you go for the 1-click install then make sure you read the small print under the 1-click link button about repositories and updates.

My Acer laptop with Vista came with two partitions ... the one with recovery information and one with Vista on. I think one had a label of acer and the other had no label. I used PartedMagic to set the partition layout I wanted. I'd leave the acer and Vista partitions at the start of the hard drive and create partitions to suit after that.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.