Advice on installing Linux

[bstegs]

If this topic strays too far into the realm of nerd/geek for most members here, I apologize. I am wanting to format my hard drive and reinstall windows xp. In addition to this, I want to install Ubuntu linux as well. This is where I am seeking advice. Any advice is welcome from suggested tutorials to partitioning. Thanks in advance.

Also to any who respond, I did graduate from ISU in CompE so I too am considered a nerd/geek, just one who never did a linux install.

 

[psycln11]

contact brianhos... his ISU vanity plate is LINUX something or other!!

 

[brianhos]

If this topic strays too far into the realm of nerd/geek for most members here, I apologize. I am wanting to format my hard drive and reinstall windows xp. In addition to this, I want to install Ubuntu linux as well. This is where I am seeking advice. Any advice is welcome from suggested tutorials to partitioning. Thanks in advance.

Also to any who respond, I did graduate from ISU in CompE so I too am considered a nerd/geek, just one who never did a linux install.

Let the linux installer just choose the partition scheme for you...If you really want to play with linux, just install XP, and then load vmware on top of that. Then you can create a virual linux box on top of XP.

I am running that setup at work, I have a Dual 3.8Ghz desktop running Fedora core 6, and then run a windows virtual machine on a seperate monitor, but on the same physical machine. It works really slick and has a very very high geek factor.

And yes, I do have ISU linux plates. That has to be the geekiest thing ever.

 

[psycln11]

I knew it wouldn't take Brian long to sniff this post out!!

 

[cytech]

there is always the ubuntu live CD as well that you can download from their site and just stick it in.. But I have installed it several times without many problems they make it pretty easy.

 

[pulse]

I'm with brianhos, install linux and then install XP in a virtual machine.

Here's a link on installing dual boot if that's what you want to do:

http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

 

[htownclone]

while everyone is being nerds/geeks, who here plays world of warcraft? cmon, I know there has to be at least a few of you on here. :biggrin9gp:

 

[cytech]

I used to, me and nothingman on here were playing it when it came out. But I quit playing about a year ago and not sure when he quit. Though I still have a 60 rogue on azjol nerub server. And some on Icecrown as well.

 

[bos]

I thought I would jump in the nerdery. I am not a huge linux fan but I didnt mind Ubuntu, I have used Fedora as well. Microsoft now offers virtual pc for free on their site I believe, but of course you would have to load that on XP and virtualize Linux. I like Vmware the best but you have to pay for it unless you happen to download the trial and use a "borrowed" key to make it official.

 

[pulse]

VMWare Server is free.

 

[bos]

What? when did they do that! Awesome.

 

[brianhos]

while everyone is being nerds/geeks, who here plays world of warcraft? cmon, I know there has to be at least a few of you on here. :biggrin9gp:

Too many kids in the house to play games. I grew up too fast!

 

[brianhos]

What? when did they do that! Awesome.

Vmware server has been free for over a year. It is a great product. we use the full blown ESX server version here to virtualize about 40 linux boxes on one single massive server. Really a cool product.

The free version is at:

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

--Brian

 

[bstegs]

Thanks to all for the advice. Can someone give me a compelling reason to install linux as the primary and run windows in a vm? How is the windows performance in this setup? I am running on an Athlon 1700 series (1.48Ghz) w/ 1 GB of RAM. Any expectations?

 

[brianhos]

Actually if I were doing this for a home setup, I would run windows as the primary OS and linux as a vm. I do it the opposite way at work because I manage over 100 linux servers, so it is more natural to me. But if you run windows as primary, you can still play games if you should ever so desire.

 

[bstegs]

I will probably do a dual boot just because I have an interest in learning more about linux but don't want to deal with having to continually reconfigure it. Should I format my whole harddrive in fat32, or should I do NTFS for my windows partition, fat32 for shared data, and ext2(3?) for the linux partitions?

 

[pulse]

You definitely want dual boot or run linux in the VM if you play games. The specs you had should be fine.

Windows will run fine in the VM with the specs you listed. If you want to play with linux, a big advantage of running linux (or any OS for that matter) inside a VM is that you can take "snapshots" of a point in time of the machine and you can revert back to it at anytime. So if you want to try something major out, like say recompiling the kernel, you can take snapshot beforehand, do your recompile, and revert back to your original state if you hosed it up. I'm not sure if the snapshot functionality is available in the free version of VMWare Server. I use VMWare Workstation which has the functionality, its great!

 

[benjay]

Advice on installing linux: Don't.

 

[brianhos]

Advice on installing linux: Don't.

If he wants to learn linux, this is the best way to do it. Learning linux at an early age is a really good idea if you want to make some serious $$$ by time you are 30. Most good unix/linux admins with about 8-10 years exp make at least $80k.

Not too shabby for a computer geek.