dual boot or chainloading
 

Hi Im something of newbie to linux. But not computers( my frist one was a VIC 20). Im new to the linux OS. Ive been useing Ubuntu and it works ok for me, better than windows. So now I try to try other distros to find something more to my likeing I have completly removed windows from my system with only Ubuntu on it. So I want to know how can I add another to my system. I do need a step by step guide. I did find some information on this but nothing I was confortable with trying.

There are a lot of live-cd with you can try without installing .
They are fully working OS
And yes can have more than one OS installed and using the GRUB menu to decide with Os you're going to boot .
But you did not tell us how much free space you do have on you're HD
Use the command fdisk -l (L lower case ) and post it over here so we do know how you're disk partitioning is

thanks for the response
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0000ac28

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 468520959 234259456 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 468523006 488396799 9936897 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 468523008 488396799 9936896 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 499.4 GB, 499405291520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60715 cylinders, total 975400960 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003d290

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 975400959 487699456 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
that is what the fdisk -l reports.
Like I said Im a newbie to linux so Im not sure how to read this.
Thanks for any input you can give

As you are new to linux it might be more easy for you to do the most task in windows assuming that windows is still there .
Defrag you're windows drive being sdb
shrink the windows drive using windows utility to make room for you're other distro
60 Gb is more than enough for you,re new linux distro .
When you install the new linux OS choice the expert or customize partitioning it depends on the linux flavor how they call it and use the free space .
If you're new linux distro did not find the others OS we have to add it manually .
We can shrink sda2 you're original linux partition but it might be that we have to chance fstab too , because we created a new partition on the original linux partition , between the original partition and the swap file being sda5

I have no windows on the computer I removed it a long time ago

In future, use [code] tags when posting output - this is yours from above. Much easier to read:
You have no free space on either disk - compare the last "End" number with the total in the header. "Start" and "end" is a sector number - "Blocks" is in units of 1024 (1kiB).
Best to get something like the gparted livecd (GUI similar to Partition Magic) that allows you to manipulate partitions. It will handle that NTFS fine. Personally I prefer to have all free space in an extended partition, and add logical partitions for new systems.

BTW, chainloading is a means of dual booting. They are not different concepts.

ok thanks but im still confused about how to go about it

Syg00 is right, you need to partition your hds first. The best at this stage would be use your ubuntu live cd and use a program called gparted to make the partitions. Everyone has their own ideas of what size they should be. If doing multiple distros I make most distros:

boot 20 meg
/ 8 gig
swap 2 gig
/home 12 gig

I have one partition 100 gig I use for data

Of course you only need one boot partition.

One swap partition may be used for all your distros.

I chainload because I install the new releases and I do not have to worry about repairing grub on each update.

thanks and I did figur out that need to re-partition. But like I said im new to linux and Im not sure how to go about this

Here are some usefull links for "gparted usage".

http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Gparted

http://www.ehow.com/how_4442619_use-...partition.html

Choose the drive from which you want to remove some free space from so that you can install your new distro.

-Sandy

thank you for the information Ill check it out