questions about partitioning hd for linux

[chunkstyle]

hi guys

i'm going to take the plunge & try linux, and was wondering if
any of you could please offer advice/info on the following questions:

1. my computer currently has win xp pro on the c: drive. the drive is 111gb with about 98gb free. i would like to add another partition for linux, but don't have partition magic.
is there any other novice-friendly, reliable way to add a partition without messing up what's already on the c:? do i have to reformat the whole drive, since the existing primary partition takes up the whole available space & is in windows'
ntfs file format?

2. when you have 2 os's on a hd, how do you determine which os will load? can you set one as the default, or do you have to do something in the bios every time you start up?

3. i'm assuming i'll need to keep linux apps in that new partition as well, since they're probably not compatible with win. is there any way to run windows apps in linux?

thank you!

[Dswissmiss]

Hi chunkstyle...
I'm fairly new to linux myself, but I think I can answer most of your questions.
What distribution are you going to start with? If you want to just get the feel for linux with a kde gui, try knoppix, it boots from your cd without installing itself, unless you want to.
1. If you're sure you want to install, start off with some begginer friendly distros like Mandrake, Fedora, or SuSe. When you start up you pc with the disk in it, the linux installer will partition your hard drive for you. It will ask you if you want to use the entire disk for linux (wiping XP), or if you want to have linux and XP co-exist on the same harddrive. You can then select the amount of space you want to use for linux, which apps you want to install, and it'll do the rest for you. It's really easy, and you can always begin installation, and abort if you aren't comfortable with the installation before anything gets partitioned. Installing linux in this way will in no way harm your files on your C: drive, it will just use unused space, in the amount you choose, and reformat that space to the linux version of NTFS, be it ext3 or reiserfs.
2. Linux installs an operating system selector for you to be able to choose which OS you want to load, either LiLo or Grub, depending on the distribution. So everytime you start your computer, you have a few seconds to choose which one you want to load. Settings for these programs can be changed within linux, for example how many seconds you have to choose, or which operating system you want to have as your primary.
3. The only way you can run windows apps in linux is using a program called samba. I don't know much about it though, so I can't help you there. But just know that linux has a lot of programs that perform the same function as windows programs, Gimp for example is the linux version of Photoshop, OpenOffice.org is the program equivalent of Microsoft office and so on.

Enjoy playing around with it
Dswissmiss

[Dangermouse1]

I think its wine that can run windows apps not samba.

[Dswissmiss]

Yes! my bad