Linux & Windows (2 paritions)

[Arcotik]

Ok, so right now I have Windows XP running on my system and I want to install Linux, but I do not want to uninstall XP(or cause damage to it). I currently have my harddrive partitioned into 2 partitions(C: & E Windows is on C: and some data is on Enothing critical). Should I install Linux on the E: Drive or the C: Drive? Also what ISO of Linux (from www.linuxiso.org)?

(FIY: The C drive has 40gb[roughly 20gb free] | The E drive has 80gb[roughly 50gb free])

Thanks

[tireman]

Just install it on the E: drive, that way you do not have to mess with your xp installation. As far as your distro goes, just depends on what you are looking for. Some are easy to work with, some are not. I downloaded about thirteen distros before I found one that I liked (Ubuntu). Many of the distros have live cd's that you can run without installing, give those a try.

tireman

[kilgoretrout]

I agree with the live cd suggestion for two reasons. First, it allows you to try linux without making any changes to your hard drive. Second, it will test your hardware for linux compatibility.
There are many linux livecds; some of the popular ones are, knoppix, kanotix, mepis ubuntu/kubuntu, pclos. All of the foregoing cds also have install routines where you can install to your hard drive if you like what you see, although knoppix isn't really optimized for that.
Obviously, you want to install on your E partition. If you have some partitioning tools, you may want to resize your E partition down to 70GB and direct the linux install program to install on the unallocated 10GB there. That's usually the safest.
Linux needs it's own partitions and the install program will automatically partition and format the unallocated space for you. 10GB is more than enough.

[ffreeloader]

The live cd advice is good advice for someone with no Linux background wanting to do a dual-boot system. Live cd's give you a chance to learn quite a bit about Linux before you install. They also let you know if you have any hardware issues too. Personally I like Knoppix, but know that there are several other distro's with live cd's. Knoppix just has very good hardware recognition.

One thing to beware of though with live cd's is that you really need at least 512 megs of ram for them to run really well. If you have less than that don't blame the slow performance on Linux. LIve cd's load everything into memory, and what isn't in memory has to be loaded off the cd, so the amount of memory you have really affects performance.

[catacon]

I dual booted with SuSE 9.1 Pro for awhile (now I run it full time). It worked fine, messed with none of the Windows files. Not saying to use SuSE, but just saying that Linux usually does a good job of partitioning. I found just using the default setup is the best. Linux is smart, it knows what to do.