Sharing Programs on a Dual Boot?
 

I just downloaded Fedora Core 5 and have it dual booting with my Windows XP. I was wondering if there is anyway I can share programs and files between the two OS's so I can minimize disk usage. Thanks :newbie:

Thats probably gonna be a pain since linux doesnt like to write to ntfs and windows doesnt like to see any of the linux filesystems at all. You could make a fat32 filesystem that both would be happy with. I think I once heard of a windows app that would let you see linux fs's but I don't know if it worked.

Keep in mind that Linux & MSWin executables are totally incompatible and will not run under the 'other' OS.
(This is why Linux is immune to MSW binary viruses)
However, you can get utils like Wine or Crossover office to enable you to run MSW progs in a MSW env inside Linux.
Of course, for progs like eg Firefox, different versions are avail for each OS.
Data files may be portable; it depends on the way they are written and if you have 2 versions of a prog that can read/write them.
I believe you need a very new version of the Linux kernel to safely write to NTFS partitions.
VFAT32 is safer for sharing I'd say.

The windows app allowing it to see linux partitions is ext2fsd

http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/

Even though it says ext2 it can allow mount and read ext3. Not sure about writing but I think it's supported and does it quite well.

Just install it, and then open a command prompt, cd to the directory you installed it, and run mount 0 2 e:

0 = Hard drive number
1 = Partition number
e: = Drive letter to mount to