I'm sure you get this ten times a day, but I don't know if I need any special installation because of the OS/Software I currently have.
I'm not really a huge technical guy, but I've been reading about Linux lately, and I'd really like to use it. Linux seems like a very cool OS, but I don't really know how to install it, per se.

I'm currently running a Windows XP Home Edition, and I need to be able to run that as well as Linux. I have a dell demention XPS desktop. I don't really mind which editon I have (Fedora, etc), just one that's pretty decent and fairly user-friendly (I'm not a COMPLETE computer idiot). Can you reccomend me any good sites to go on, what do to, and how to go about installing it? Thanks in advance.

BTW: I'm sure I can google it, and find this information, but I figured there's a forum for it, and it would be much easier--and much less chance of error--to just ask here.

A good starting point would be knoppix to learn on. You don't have to install it. Just runs from the CD.

http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz
http://tldp.org/
http://iso.linuxquestions.org/

Live CD's you don't have to install
http://www.efense.com/helix/
http://www.knoppix.org/

FreeBSD
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO...ook/index.html
http://www.freesbie.org/

That should start you off with lots of info.

Wow, thanks for all those links. I'll start looking. Much obliged.

This one is well worth looking at also: http://distrowatch.com/

Hi Kevin. A good idea would be to start with PCLinuxOS or FreeBSD which are very user-friendly. They can be booted up directly from the CD so that one can test and play around with them and then decide on installation. After booting into them, the "install" icon will appear on the desktop from where you can proceed on the installation. This minimizes the risk of installing a Linux distro which won't recognize your display driver or sound card for example.

Just work on the Live CDs of any linux that provide one. Knoppix is one or you can download the ISO of a live CD of Ubuntu and run it. Here is the URL - http://mirrors.csumb.edu/ubuntu/edgy/

Working is the best way of learning it.

-AJ

Well Kevin, I dunno if this helps you with your choice, but right now Im typing this thread using KNOPPIX live cd, and im the same as you, a complete newbie!! I have no clue how to program, run or use linux but im trying my damndest coz Im sick of the Bill Gates route.

So, what do I think? Well my first experiment with Linux was with a linux puppy live cd (you should try it, the whole OS is so small it runs purely from RAM, no HD needed, therefor reaction time is damn near instantaneous) and was so impressed with it that I bought a mem stick so I could run it primarily from that as upposed to walking about with a cd in my hand all the time.

And this knoppix Im using? Well I'll let you know. As soon as the OS started I came straight to this site to say 'hey I made it!'. On loading knoppix from cd, it found every single piece of my hardware no probs all by itself and configured it all perfectly.

Im still interested in a dual boot system until I take the big plunge and go purely for linux but (and for all of those newbies that havent experienced this yet), if you're running winXP with the NTFS file system, partition programs wont partition your drive as all of em (well to my knowledge) prefer to partition FAT file systems and therefor throw a heap of errors in your face as to why it wont partition your NTFS drive (Bill, if you're reading this, give your money to the needy and go back to IBM)

So in summary, im helluva impressed so far and Im not giving in on the dual boot system, I'll get there (I hope)

I would try out FC6(Fedora Core 6), Im new to linux and manged to get it installed, with windows intact.

Since I can't post links (need 3 posts or more) i have broken them up:
FC6 Website: www . fedoraproject . org
Personal Fedora Core 6 Installation Guide www . mjmwired . net / resources / mjm-fedora-fc6 . html
FC6 Tips and Tricks: www . gagme . com/ greg/ linux/ fc6-tips . php

Hi Flip, you installed with windows intact? Im assuming you partitioned the hard drive and done a dual boot yes? but how did you partition the drive, what did you use, are you on NTFS file system or FAT??

The reasons im asking is, I cant find a partitioning tool that will partition a NTFS hard drive, even the linux partition tools wont give it a look in

This may sound like splitting hairs, but there are no "NTFS hard drives". A drive starts out generic--and then you create partitions of various types.

If you are talking about creating and modifying NTFS partitions, then there are Linux tools. fdisk and cfdisk will create and delete, and GParted or QTParted will both re-size NTFS.

QTParted in on the Knoppix live CD (and in the repositories for manay distros. GParted is a standalone bootable CD--not much else on it.

I used the one on the FC6 Setup Wizard
I did it like this:
Resize the windows partition
Create a ext3 partiton (/) and then next...

If you cant get that to work try Partition Magic, that allows you to do it aswell.

Thank pixellany and Flip,

For starters I didnt know the linux partition tool could partition an NTFS file system, and I didnt even know there was a partitioning tool on the KNOPPIX live cd as Ive only been playing with it for maybe 24hrs, but Im glad to know.

As for partition magic, I went out my way to get this because the free Mandriva 2007 disk refused to partition an NTFS file sys. But much to my surprise, partition magic also refused to partition an NTFS sys, even with the latest patches installed, which I was told to do, hence my reason for this string in the first place.

Well now I have a whole new problem! Today I went out and got me a broadband router and wireless network adapter to set up a wireless network, and yep im now completely wireless and surfing the net just fine! (on windows) but when i booted up my knoppix live cd, it wouldnt recognize the wireless setup, and i am once again stuck. Ive seen a thread on this forum about my network adapter not having linux drivers and no one, as of yet, has got the same wireless adapter to work (linksys WUSB54GS)

So it seems that im slowly taking steps forward in the linux world and then two steps back, yay