Loading Linux on an XP system for dual boot?

[lauroy8]

Ok specs first.

AMD Athlon 1.4ghz
512MB PC2100 DDR
Pandex FX5200 128MB Vid Card
Aopen CD-Rom
80gig Samsung - formatted NTFS
OS - XP Pro
Linksys 802.11b wireless PCI card

It is a fresh install of XP with very little on the drive 70+ gigs free.
I was hoping to install Linux on the box and be able to select which OS to boot from at startup. I certainly don't expect someone to provide me with detailed instructions, just maybe point me to a tutorial, and maybe suggest a distribution to use. My kids are in highschool and I want them to learn some Linux, thought it might give them a bit of an edge.

Thanks in advance.

[nukes]

Right, first of all, get Mandrake.
www.mandrake.com
Seeing as you've already partitioned the drive it will be able to resize your NTFS partition.
SCANDISK AND DEFRAG BEFORE YOU RESIZE
just install, do an expert install and read the descriptions for the packages decide which ones you need. install the devel packages as well.
When the install is done, Mandrake will set up a boot loader for you, allowing you to choose between XP and Linux.
TBH I'd advise reformating windows if you can, just give it a 20gb partition, say, and a big FAT32 one for storage, that way you can read/write it in Linux AND XP. (Linux can't write to NTFS - well, it can, but it will corrupt your filesystem)
Mandrake has a nice installation tutorial here:
http://doc.mandrakelinux.com/Mandrak.../Starter.html/
It also covers many other aspects of using the distro.

[lauroy8]

Ok, are you saying that Mandrake will allow me to resize and reformat a portion of the drive as part of the installation?

[hickory]

I just did two systems that were running Win2000 Professional and it went slick as a breeze.

In my case when I got to the install part that asked me where to install Linux I used the custom option (maybe it was called expert?) and resized my windows partition. Since in both cases they were using Fat32 I had no problems. One was a desktop with 2 drives a 30 gb and a 15 gb, the 30 gb was the c: drive so I resized it for windows to be 20 gb and installed Mandrake 9.2 on the remaining space. Both Windows and Linux can access the 15 gb drive and share data in this case it was movies.

On the Thinkpad laptop it had a 30 gb hard drive and I did basically the same resizing it down to 20 gb for windows and the remainder went to Linux. It will be used to experiment with and give the owner an option to learn Linux on.

Hope this helps, and as Nukes recommends go for the Mandrake 9.2 it is a great starter distro, but also works well for the more serious Linux geek.

As far as the kids go my 13 year old is using my old Thinkpad 385XD, PII 233 mhz with Mandrake 9.2 loaded and he has figured out how to instant message his friends using GAIM without my showing him. Now he's a Linux geek as well and he likes showing off to his Windows only friends.

Have fun!

tom

[lauroy8]

Thats awesome....thanks for the help all.

[nukes]

Ok, are you saying that Mandrake will allow me to resize and reformat a portion of the drive as part of the installation?

Yes, they added the ability to resize NTFS in version 9.1.

Thats awesome....thanks for the help all.

Hope it all goes well. If there's any bits you don't understand about the installation and aren't covered in the docs, post back. Especially relating to partitioning as done incorrectly can cause you to lose data.
Good Linux-ing (or if RMS is reading - GNU/Linux-ing )