Hi folks,
I don't know where to post this thread but at last I think this will be the best forum to post this thread.
Actually, I want to know the whether we can have different operating systems like Redhat,Ubuntu,Windows... to run(obviously not at same time) on my system??

I heard of few cases about these which are:
1. We can run both windows and linux if first we install the windows and then linux but not in reverse order i.e, installing linux after windows.
2.One of my friends while installing Ubuntu on his system which had Redhat installed previously he got some cyclic redundancy problem and both his redhat n ubuntu are not working.

Why this is happening.....??

Any replies are greatly appreciated.

Hi,

yes of course, you can have lots of different OS's installed on one machine

When one of the OS's is Windows, it is generally accepted practice to have Windows installed FIRST, and then proceed to install as many Linuxes as you like, using the Linux Bootloader to boot Windows when necessary. This is usually referred to as "Dual Booting".

Doing the reverse, i.e. installing Windows AFTER Linux is already installed, can be done, but if you search around a bit, you will find a lot of evidence indicating that this method produces MANY headaches! Install Windows first, save yourself the headache!

As for "cyclic redundancy" because of installing Ubuntu after redhat (or whatever), I have never heard of this, but I like the term and we would probably need to know about what happened there, to really give any ideas about *why* your friend got cyclic redundancy.

Sasha

Thanks for your reply.

My friend is a guy who install different OS on his system frequently.He recently installed Ubuntu on his system which already had redhat installed.Actually, he completed all the installing steps and finally got some cyclic redundancy problem(he himself forgot the total error but it showed something like cyclic redundancy)in which he ignored and continued further. Then he came to see his system running ubuntu but working something like running it from a live CD.Later restarted the system and failed to boot his system.

Also, I want to know the headache part of installing windows after having redhat or some other linuxes because that might be the concern of a user. You didn't answered me why this is happening?

No, I didn't go into detail about why to install Windows first, because (A) you didn't really ask why to do this, and (B) I hinted that if you do a bit of searching, you would find lots of evidence, which would answer the question for you. In brief: Windows does not like to be installed as the second or subsequent OS on a HDD. It wants to be the first OS, in the first partition, otherwise it has difficulty booting, and/or won't install and/or won't boot. I can't remember the exact details of the various problems, because it has been a nice, pleasant, long time, since I have experienced any Windows or dual-booting of Windows.

You'll have to search for specifics!

Kind regards,
Sasha

k... But I just wanted to know why this is happening rather than knowing what are the errors I will get while installing.
I think the reason is that
1.Windows can be run with GRUB but linux cannot run with Windows boot loader.
2.GRUB is overwriting while installing ubuntu(Since both redhat and ubuntu have same boot loader GRUB).

Is it???