[StAndrews and Fife LUG] Linux newbie seeks help.

[David Tillotson]

In message <004a01c36047$5e94cb20$fb04fd3e@yourlh62pnjpda>, Shaun Moran=20
<shaun.finbar@virgin.net> writes
>Hi everyone my name is Shaun Moran and I live in Dunfermline. I am
>interested in setting up a dual boot system with xp/me on an Athlon
>1800 desktop with a 60g disk. I have no experience at all with linux
>systems.

If you're just wanting to "dip your toes", I would recommend getting=20
hold of a Knoppix CD. If you have a good 'net connection, you can find=20
out more at http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

>Windows authentication procedures for xp have been the spur to
>investigate this possibility, however I remain nervous about the
>prospect of a)"messing about" with=A0 a functioning system and b)
>learning about an unfamiliar OS.
>Can I have some advice please?

In order:
a) Get hold of Partition Magic 8. This allows you to safely resize your=20
XP partition, and make room for another OS. Also make sure that you have=20
a Windows rescue disk available, just in case (I have seen some Linux=20
installs screw-up enough to make a system unusable without a rescue disk=20
of some sort.)
b) Give Knoppix a try first - this is a fully functional Linux system=20
(based on Debian) that does even touch your hard drive (unless you have=20
less that 128M RAM, in which case it'll want to create a swap file.)

>I=A0have read about different distros, what would you recommend to a new
>user? What information do I need to collect about my hardware prior to
>insatllation? I have never partitioned a drive before how do I do it?=A0

Once you're sure that you'd like to go down the dual-boot path, my=20
personal recommendation would be either SuSE or Mandrake. Mandrake is=20
freely available (the ISOs were on the PCW DVD a couple of months back),=20
and is pretty newbie friendly. SuSE on the other hand comes with a great=20
manual, is almost as newbie friendly as a distro can get, but doesn't=20
stop you from learning (I am assuming that you want to!)
If you need any more advice etc, just yell.
--=20
David Tillotson