Hi. I have a computer I built. I have windows xp home. I want to learn how to use linux. Someone said I could dual boot the machine. Is it possible? If so how can I do it. Thanks Danio7

This is plastered all over the Internet. Next time try Google with "dual boot linux windows xp". 1) Partition your hard drive. You will need at least two partitions for Linux (leave Windows with one). Since you have one partition now that takes up the entire drive, you will need to split (or resize) that. There are several programs that split NTFS drives like PartitionMagic, BootitNQ, and PartitionManager (the non-free SuSE Linux distribution comes with its own, I believe). Remember you need to split/resize the partition, not just create more out of one (i.e. keep your existing Windows without erasing it). 2) Install Linux (follow the installation guide - remember to leave your Windows partition alone). 3) The bootloader will overwrite the existing NTLoader NT/2000/XP uses. At bootup, the bootloader (it might be LILO) will display a select screen where you can pick which OS to boot with a default set to load in N seconds. There is a plethora of documentation to configure this further. It is easier to use a liveboot distribution like Knoppix, MandrakeMove, etc. Those actually load in RAM, configure themselves automatically, and your settings and files can be saved to a floppy or USB drive (don't need to touch the hard drive, but you can).

There is some info on my website about this. Follow the Hopmepage link. Also as anonproxy said there is a lot more of it out there in the www. Just search for it. ___________________________________________ ☺ When everything else fails, read the instructions.

I think the best way to go is to reload Windows. Load Windows giving it part of your hard drive and leaving the other part unpartitioned. This means removing all partitions (losing all data) then creating a new partition for Windows. Install Windows on this new partition After it is done load Linux and install it on the free space on the hard drive. If you use something like Fedora or RedHat or anything with Grub it will automatically create your boot menu for you. There should be an option or 2 for you to configure during install. Just choose which OS should be the default and let it do the rest.

I installed RH 9 on a brand new laptop with XP pro on it. I did not remove windoz I partitioned the drive down the middle and gave half to RedHat. Grub handles it fine. It will call XP dos so dont be alarmed by the dos entry in the boot menu. dos=boot.ini so it will load whatever M$ system you want Good Luck Ron