Partitioning question(s)

Am wanting to have dual OS for purpose of trial and learning new OS whilst still having familiar on tap.
Currently run Tiny WinXP Pro by eXPerience which, btw, has worked flawlessly for me for many months.
Want to partition and install a yet to be determined Linux OS.
Questions:
Can I partition without disturbing my current OS?

What's a good app for doing this?

Which Linux distro would be best for a Linux beginner who wants ease of installation and maximum available apps?

Blessings,
Port-O-San

 

No. There are a few things you can do, but they all involve the use of a 2nd hard drive. If you don't mind erasing your data, then you have no problems; or you could back up your important stuff to CD/DVD, then erase the drive and re-partition it....

 

I have two hard drives in my machine, the slave is partitioned but the master is not.

I also have Alcohol120%, but haven't used it enough to know what I'm doing, or even if a virtual drive would help in this situation.

Am thinking that I could move everything that isn't OS onto the other drive, then proceed.

I'd have to format the C:/ drive, then partition, then install one OS on each partition? This is where I get foggy. I'm not scared to do these things, but I like to have an educated opinion as to how to do them properly.
I am uneducated / self educated (MajorGeeks educated!) but I follow directions very, very well.

Oh, I also have a friend who lives nearby who is adept at and equipped for this kind of thing - maybe that would be the best path?

Blessings,
Port-O-San

 

Yes you can, its called resizing a partition.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/resize/resizing.htm
http://www.majorgeeks.com/GParted_d5757.html

As for good distros to begin with, please visit our Linux forum when you are ready.

A somewhat decent partition system for Linux would be

/boot partition, to contain the kernel, Grub, and what not. ~150mb to be safe, formatted as ext2.
/swap for the swap file. ~ dependent on ram amount. Mine is ~600mb.
/ The root partition-- for the rest of the files. Mine is ~150gb formatted as ext3.

Keep in mind that there can only be four primary partitions per disk, in which XP counts as one.

 

Actually, he can. I've done it before with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mandriva and PCLinuxOS live install discs. Many of them have partitioning utilities which can resize Windows partitions to make room for installation of it's respective Linux OS. There is a small, but very real, risk of loss of the Windows partition if it is resized so any data, valuable or otherwise, should be backed up on external media first.

Somebody beat me to the punch!?!

 

Adrynalyne, can I resize a partition that isn't there? My C:/ isn't partitioned as yet.........
I'm more confused than when I started.....
This can't be that difficult, can it?
Maybe we should assume that I know nothing, rather than all the bad habits I do know.......
Blessings All!
Port-O-San

 

Just Playin' - will those utilities make a partition without disturbing my current OS? If so, I'm in! I can backup everything to my D:/ which is a separate H.D.
Blessings,
Port-O-San

 

If C:\ is where your windows is, it is partitioned.

THe filesystem sits on top of the partition, and the OS sits on tops of the filesystem.

 

Aha! That clears things up!

 

I didn't know I learn something new every day I wasn't thinking along the lines of Linux, and I have essentially no experience with Linux and know next to nothing about Linux. Anyway- thanks for the knowledge. That's what it's all about...

Happy Thanksgiving! :yum

 

Well, I've downloaded and burned my Ubuntu 7.10 disk......... and am feeling great trepidation. Guess I'm a sissy, but I'm going to wait until my techwhiz pal comes over - at least that way, if anything messes up, he buys the bait the next few times we go fishing. I just don't want to pay greedy gozillionaires any more for stuff that is minimally functional, full of security issues, and is famous for disappearing tech support. If you don't hear from me for awhile, you can thank my pal, Nathan! HAHA!

Reminds me of when I lived in a small midwestern town - all the local businesses has BUY LOCAL all over the storefronts, but their prices were outrageous. I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, which he kindly published saying that I'd far rather feed my neighbor's kids than Sam Walton's and I didn't mind paying more to do so, but they had to meet me in the middle somewhere. Believe it or not, prices became more reasonable and business picked up - and downtown didn't die in Washington, Iowa.
If this Ubuntu proves to be as good as alot of folks say, I'll gladly do my part and send in some support - and advertise, as well.
Blessings,
Port-O-San

 

You can boot a live distro without changing anything on your computer. Put the Ubuntu CD in the drive, turn on the computer and let it load. Don't get too upset if it doesn't work 100%. Ubuntu might be great but it doesn't work on all computers. You do have to find a distro that likes your hardware. That's what makes live distros so nice. You get to test drive them and see if you like it before you install.

 

Plodr, by "live distro" do you mean the version I downloaded from the Ubuntu website? I made the disk by putting the .iso file on disk using imgburn - hope I did this right...... and....... it won't install? will just run from disk? I'm trying to understand all this.......

 

It does both. You can put the CD into your drive, turn on the computer and boot live, without doing damage to your windows computer. That way, you get to see if Ubuntu likes your hardware. If it likes the hardware and you like Ubuntu, you can install from the same CD. It's been awhile since I fired up Ubuntu so I'm not sure if the following is accurate: "there will be an icon on the desktop that says install" , if you click that, you can install it. On the other hand, if you decide Ubuntu doesn't work properly on your hardware, you log out/shut down the computer, take the CD out and fire up windows.

Port-O-San, Ubuntu has a large following but there are other distros you might also like to try (run live) before you decide to install one. PCLinux, Simply Mepis and Mandriva 1 are good distros to sneak a peek at.