# Moving up!......................Finally



## bydand (Mar 27, 2007)

Well, I bit the bullet and decided that I could no longer work with the POS computer I was using.  OK, it really started a long, slow painful death roll the other day and I had to replace it.  Had been using a 6 or 7 year old Celerion 1.3 GHz with 256 MB of RAM.  Lowly 20 GB hard Drive and a video card that had a hard time playing youtube videos without freezing up.  Well, I think I have a new best place to shop online in Newegg.  Dropped the meager coin for a complete new set-up and was suprized at how cheap it rang up to be.  By Friday I should be surfing in style:  AMD Athlon 64X2 5200Ghz processor; 2 Gig of RAM;  dual 250 GB Barricuda HD's;  PNY 512 Mb video (not a gamer so I don't need the high tech video); Raidmax case (Smilidon); New DVD burner... the whole 9 yards.  Nothing really special, but I am excited about the upgrade from trash to something that can at least edit some video without puking it's guts out.  I priced a similer system at a local shop, but they wanted way too much for it ($1800) and I wasn't willing to finance their delusions of grandor because I have built 90% of the systems I have owned (going back to the 8088 days and those GD dip switches on everything) and wasn't about to give them that much for a few hours of work.  Everything came in under a grand, including a real honest version of XP Pro (Vista is too new, and if Microsoft holds true, too buggy right now for my tastes.)  AS much as I wanted to dump MS in the ash-can, some of the programs I use, I don't know if I can get to run in Linux.

Question:  Never have done it, but how problematic is a dual-boot of XP Pro and a version of Linux?  And also what are your ideas on the best version for a Linux noob?


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## Carol (Mar 27, 2007)

Good golly I've been wondering where you've been Scott!  

I've missed ya!


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## Shaderon (Mar 27, 2007)

Hiya!  Well done!!!

I've never set up a dual boot system with Linux and Xp, in fact I've only ever done 2 x ms systems on dual boot, but I have been told by a reliable source that Red Hat Linux is a good one for newbies to the system.   I played with it a little and it seemed quite common sense, plus there seems to be plenty of books available on it.


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## mrhnau (Mar 27, 2007)

I've got a dual boot that is not dual booting  I think its specific to my system though... I'm using Red Hat's Fedora, and I've enjoyed that  There are a few others that people tend to enjoy... Ubuntu, Knoppix for instance... There are enough tech people that I'd expect a good variety of systems to be represented


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## Grenadier (Mar 27, 2007)

Shaderon said:


> but I have been told by a reliable source that Red Hat Linux is a good one for newbies to the system. I played with it a little and it seemed quite common sense, plus there seems to be plenty of books available on it.


 
Yup, although these days, I use the free version of Red Hat, known as Fedora Core.  Same thing, but you're dependent on the community (a big one at that) for tech help.  

Configuration for multi boot is very easy.  

Right now, they're up to Fedora Core v6.0, affectionately nicknamed "Zod."


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## mrhnau (Mar 27, 2007)

Grenadier said:


> Configuration for multi boot is very easy.


really? Gimme your number, I need some tech support! LOL

seriously though, most people are fine with it, but I've had some serious heart ache getting things to work right...


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## Andrew Green (Mar 27, 2007)

Setting up a Dual Boot system is easy.

Install Windows first, it gets grouchy if it isn't installed on the first drive at the beginning, and also doesn't let you set up a dual boot, cleans that off and only boots windows 

Once windows is on, install linux.  It will set up a dual boot without you doing much of anything.

Ubuntu would be a good choice.  It's easy to install, easy to setup and has a ton of community support. It's also got a few installation tools that make getting all the 3rd party stuff setup really easy.  

Fedora is ok, but is a testing distrobution for Red Hat, as such I've found it to be a little less stable.  I also prefer the Debian way of doing things.

One gotcha that I do know of, Flash and I believe Java do not come with 64bit versions, not being open source its the producers that have that control, and they won't release it.  32 bit plugins don't work in 64 bit firefox. My solution was to install 32-bit swiftfox with the plugins and use that.  Basically a recomiled Firefox, optimized for AMD processors.  With Ubuntu Automotix takes care of that for you 

Careful though, once you discover MythTV, Windows use just dissapears


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## crushing (Mar 27, 2007)

Instead of dual booting you may want to check out desktop virtualization using VMWare Player or Microsoft's Virtual PC to run both at the same time (both products are free).  This will be nice in that you can check out Linux and easily remove it without screwing around with your boot records.

For example, right now I'm set up to run Ubuntu under a Microsoft Virtual PC session.  The sound isn't very good and the color is limited to 16-bit with Microsoft's product.  The VMWare player may be better, I haven't checked that out yet.

http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx


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## bydand (Mar 27, 2007)

Andrew Green said:


> Install Windows first, it gets grouchy if it isn't installed on the first drive at the beginning, and also doesn't let you set up a dual boot, cleans that off and only boots windows



One of the reasons I hate MS so much, they think everybodt is stupid and cannot make the "right" choice for themselves.  Sure it is nice for some, but just ticks me off everytime a MS product changes settings on my machine without asking if I want them.





> Ubuntu would be a good choice.  It's easy to install, easy to setup and has a ton of community support. It's also got a few installation tools that make getting all the 3rd party stuff setup really easy.



I'll look for a copy today!



> One gotcha that I do know of, Flash and I believe Java do not come with 64bit versions, not being open source its the producers that have that control, and they won't release it.  32 bit plugins don't work in 64 bit firefox. My solution was to install 32-bit swiftfox with the plugins and use that.  Basically a recomiled Firefox, optimized for AMD processors.  With Ubuntu Automotix takes care of that for you



Thanks for the heads up!  Another few things i'll have to find and download .





> Careful though, once you discover MythTV, Windows use just dissapears



A dream come true for me... Windoze dissapearing!  Ahhhh the bliss!  Don't get me wrong, I think MS does a great job for the masses, but in it's rush to bring in another dollar, they take too many shortcuts and push things out the door with way too many problems for a premium price then just send out patches to fix their leaky, sinking product.  If I did my job like that, I would starve to death.  I can see it now:  Yes all the cabeling is done for your new office and mostly tested.  What? you actually plugged a computer into the data jacks!  Jeeze, let me fix that for you...  You want to do what?  well that option of actually moving data through those wires will cost you extra, it wasn't in the original contract... What do you mean yo got somebody else to punch down the blocks? now it won't work at all...   Hello, unemployment office, I have a need. 

Thanks for the information so far everybody.


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## Andrew Green (Mar 27, 2007)

Another way to set it up so that Linux doesn't touch the windows drive is to install Windows on one, then swap them around.  Make the windows disk the second one, and install linux on the first.  The bootmanager gets installed on the first, and "tricks" windows into thinking it is the first when you boot to it.


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## bydand (Mar 27, 2007)

crushing said:


> Instead of dual booting you may want to check out desktop virtualization using VMWare Player or Microsoft's Virtual PC to run both at the same time (both products are free).  This will be nice in that you can check out Linux and easily remove it without screwing around with your boot records.
> 
> For example, right now I'm set up to run Ubuntu under a Microsoft Virtual PC session.  The sound isn't very good and the color is limited to 16-bit with Microsoft's product.  The VMWare player may be better, I haven't checked that out yet.
> 
> ...




Will check these out as well!  Thanks.


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## Andrew Green (Mar 27, 2007)

bydand said:


> Thanks for the heads up!  Another few things i'll have to find and download .



ubuntu.com -> gets you the cd, it's only 1 cd which is nice 

ubuntuguide.org -> Will walk you through setup of more common things.  Basically install the cd, add the other reposatories, add automatix2 and install other thngs from it.  That will likely cover most things you need.

Alternatively https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ has excellent documentation.

If you've never used Linux before, it is suprisingly easy to install software.  Most things can be done through Synaptic, a gui program.  Just search, click install then apply.

Other things generally have a good step by step walkthrough around, but that is less commonly used things.


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## MSTCNC (Mar 27, 2007)

Andrew,

I've decided to try installing Umbutu on my laptop that currently has XP on it...

The CD is about 5-min out... so, I'll let you know later...

Thanks for the recommendation!

Your Brother in the arts,

Andrew


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## Andrew Green (Mar 27, 2007)

Good luck


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## fireman00 (Mar 27, 2007)

I have an old IBM laptop that I was ready to toss until I learned about Linux.  I ran through about 6 different distros, Redhat, Puppy, Pocket PC, Ubuntu and a couple more I don't recall until I hooked up with Mandriva 2007 (company used to be Mandrake).  Excellent little OS for a older model PC/ laptop - it doesn't use a lot of hard drive space, doesn't need an obnoxious amount of RAM, can run from a "live"CD, found my network card easily and came with OpenOffice (excellent MS office replacment and is compatible),  FireFox (Web browser) and Thunderbird(email).

If you're going to take the plunge be prepared to get "under the hood" and learn about command line statments - but its  worth while.


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## Andrew Green (Mar 28, 2007)

This looks like another option for anyone in need of a dual boot.

http://www.cutlersoftware.com/ubuntusetup/wubi/en-US/index.html

I imagine disk access will drop, as it will have to use a windows file system on a virtual drive.  But a interesting concept, I'd try it, but my computer is Linux only, no xp to try it on


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## bydand (Mar 28, 2007)

Andrew Green said:


> This looks like another option for anyone in need of a dual boot.
> 
> http://www.cutlersoftware.com/ubuntusetup/wubi/en-US/index.html
> 
> I imagine disk access will drop, as it will have to use a windows file system on a virtual drive.  But a interesting concept, I'd try it, but my computer is Linux only, no xp to try it on



Very interesting!  I'll download a copy and give it a whirl.  I downloaded the regular version of Ubuntu last night and was looking forward to giving it a try, but this sounds like generally the same thing, but less hassle just to see how I like it.  Thanks for the link!


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## bydand (Mar 29, 2007)

All I have to say is WOW!
 Man this thing flys.  Parts came in last night about 7:30 and after bedtime for the Ruffians I started to put it together.  Finished about an hour later and everything just clicked.  Wouold have been done sooner, but I kept thinking it should be harder than it was.  Man times have changed.


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## crushing (Mar 29, 2007)

bydand said:


> Very interesting! I'll download a copy and give it a whirl. I downloaded the regular version of Ubuntu last night and was looking forward to giving it a try, but this sounds like generally the same thing, but less hassle just to see how I like it. Thanks for the link!


 
Let us know how it goes with your new system and if you install linux.

I'm especially interested in if you give Wubi a whirl.  It does look interesting.  Thanks.


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