[Durham] Installing Linux on a notebook pre-installed with Windows 7 - creating a dual boot system

[Oliver Burnett-Hall]

On Sun, 10 Jul 2011 10:47:12 +0100
Dougie Nisbet <dougie at highmoor.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> There are a few nice notebook deals around at the moment (The Acer 
> Inspires in particular) that have generous hard-drive space and I'm 
> tempted. Most seem to ship with Windows 7. Would I be expecting a lot
> of pain if I were to attempt a Linux (Mint) install to create a
> dual-boot system?

You shouldn't have much trouble doing this.

I got a new laptop recently and, as I'd been forbidden from completely
wiping Windows off if (the other half needs it for itunes as she's got
an iphone), I downloaded a Parted Magic live image and used that to
shrink down the Windows partition and free up some space for Linux.

From there it's just a case of installing Linux into the free space
using the distro's normal installer.  I think some distributions will
be able to do the shrinking step themselves, but I went with Parted
Magic as it's easy to use and it's always worked well for me in the
past.

HTH,

- olly