[Westwales] Linux with XP

[John Beisley]

On 4/20/06, Michael Sheldon <webmaster at mikeasoft.com> wrote:
> > Soooooo, on a scale of 1 to ohshitohshitohshit! How
> > safe is it to install, frinstance, Mandriva, with XP? Answers before eight O'clock
> > to-morrow morning would be nice (I live on the edge!)
>
>  I can't speak specifically for Mandriva as I haven't used it, but most
> distributions will happily coexist with XP. Some require more effort
> than others (e.g. some might not like resizing NTFS partitions, in which
> case you might want to use something like PartitionMagic first). But my
> main suggestion would be to try and get a machine setup with XP that you
> can test with, without fear of screwing things up. Most problems with
> installation are just caused by a lack of familiarity with the way the
> installer and partitioner work.
>
>  If you're reasonably familiar with repartitioning drives, you'll
> probably be able to pick things up almost instantly without a problem.
> But I'd still recommend having a go with a test machine first if you're
> not in a position to be able to restore the machines yourself.

I agree with Mike on that. I'd suggest Ubuntu as a distro, although
Mandriva may have improved since I last used it (many years ago now).

But I'm still not sold on the whole RPM-based distro system that is
RedHat, Fedora, SuSE and Mandriva. Gentoo is probably a bit hardcore
for somebody just starting out with Linux (I've been using Linux for
around 7-8 years and I've not quite plucked up the courage to try it
yet). I'm happily using Debian, but Ubuntu is also looking good, and
maybe friendlier to new people than Debian.

Relavant links:
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.debian.org/

- John