[Westwales] Linux with XP

[Colin Sauze]

Pax wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:51:50 +0100
>Dick Bain <dick at towy71.uklinux.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Pax wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hi
>>>
>>>I've just got a job teaching IT at an English Language College in Bournemouth.
>>>The machines all run XP and are badly infected with ad-ware etc. I've got full
>>>admin privileges and would like to dual boot with Linux because all the compilers
>>>are free, and I know what I'm doing with Linux, and I really can't cope with
>>>Windows. However, I don't want to try installing Linux and then mash the machines
>>>and have to go to the SysAdmin (outsourced) and ask him, redfaced, to re-install XP
>>>on the machines I've graunched. 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 would say that Mandriva is fine to run alongside XP, just make sure 
>>that you run defrag before trying to shrink XP partitions.
>>There are of course the live distros Knoppix, Mandriva  one, ubuntu 
>>etc., but if you are comfortable with Mandriva use that.
>>And as someone just posted you must have access to the XP cds and 
>>licences so you can always re-install yourself.
>>Dick
>>
>>    
>>
>
>Wow!
>	Trust West Wales to come up with the goods! Many thanks for the many replies.
>I'm an old hand at dual install, I was asking the question because I heard that there
>were problems with XP dual boots in the early days and I didn't want egg all over my
>face if I wiped XP off a machine, never having dual booted with anything later than '98. 
>The reason I am thinking of using Mandriva is because my early experience of diskdrake 
>suggests that is the easiest way of resizing and partitioning. Once I've got the drive
>repartitioned I'll swap to Debian (how can anybody live without apt?).
>
>Defrag? Do I really, really have to? I can choose a machine with 70% free space. I started
>defragging one machine this morning and it looked as though it was going to take all day.
>How long should defrag take on a 50 gig hard drive with 30% usage? Do I really, really have to?
>  
>
When you install Mandriva it tells you how big the maximum partition it 
can create from your NTFS drive is. This will depend on the disk's 
fragmentation. If this is too small for you then you'll have to defrag 
the drive.

As for safety I've installed Mandriva 2006 (and lots of previous 
versions) on several machines alongside Windows and had no trouble 
splitting partitions.  Mandriva also comes with a tool called urpm which 
is basically their own version of apt, just type urpmi followed by the 
package name and it will install the right packages, the default option 
is from CD but its easy to configure to use the net as well.

As for a more general solution to your problem, can you not make the 
Windows machines rebuild themselves from a central image (or even use a 
Linux mini-distro to do this) when rebooted or from a special live CD? 
As long as the image isn't corrupted this should keep the machines 
secure and if anything goes wrong just reboot it or pop in a rebuild CD.