Good day to everyone listening. Have been searching this forum for background of the above for about 1 year. Finally have a 1 TB HD for my trusty Lenovo laptop. Will be loading XP and Linux on the HD and joining the Linux team one step at a time. Here's hoping my contribution will offset all the help I'll be needing shortly.

And a good day to you! Welcome.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Regards...

WHY???? XP!!!!!!

Microsoft is NOT supporting it
Not even sure that you can register a XP install

so in 30 days XP-sp3 will boot you out for using a unlicensed( pirate) copy

-- have fun


even win 7 is now on SECURITY ONLY updates

Welcome to GNU/Linux and LQ!

Switching slowly sounds all good and comfortable, but it rarely works out in my experience! Kind of like quitting smoking - you just have to make up your mind to do it, after that it is easy!

So I would suggest that you make a short list of your must have uses (not applications), install a linux of your choice and figure out how to do everything on the list using only Linux. At the same time begin a methodical self-study to get up to speed with just the basics of GNU/Linux and your distro - and use it as you learn!

You will learn much more quickly by doing, and it really is not difficult - just a little different.

Good luck!

I've been reading conflicting reports of this. However, I can't remember at this moment if OEM versions that come preinstalled or from a restore CD handle activation in the same manner retail versions do. I recall the process being different, if it was even required at all.

EDIT: Yep, it is different.

Regards...

If you think back to the day you first laid eyes on a computer and booted it's Operating System, you will remember how difficult it was to adjust to whichever OS you used. For most people these days, their first operating system was Windows. For myself, it was DOS when I was 6. Every time I run into a problem in Linux, I try to remember that the problem is not a problem, but a challenge, and just another learning experience. I think if everyone thought this way about their operating system, there would be more Linux and *BSD users today.

for dual booting with XP
( this is what i used for XP and fedora4 and centos5 - why back then

the 10 to 14 year old guides you can use
( you just do not need to use a 3.5 in "floppy" )
and use the "dd" method
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...op.html?page=3

then edit the XP boot.ini as per any of the win98 to xp guides
http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/linnwin/step2-xp.htm
to add the "linux.bin" you made using dd


or

replace XP's bootloader with the linux grub bootloader
( newer guides)

google " dual boot xp linux " with the quotes
or replace "linux" with your distro