I have a Gateway Laptop running Windows XP (Specs will follow) and I want to install Fedora Core 4 to make it a dual boot system. Can someone help me out here? I am new to linux as far as putting it on my own system (I have used it on other systems).

System Specs:
OS: Win XP
HD: 60 Gig IDE ATA
OD: DVD +-RW
Processor: Intel Celeron M processor 1.5 GHz
Onboard video and audio
Broadcom Lan and wireless


Please help.
beubanks7507

PS. I am not a programmer so if what you are trying to say is technical I may or may not understand it. In short, technical jargon and programming have a very good chance of being over my head.

Being that you are not that technical, depending on your needs, one suggestion might be to leave your existing Win XP system alone and just boot to a Knoppix CD. It boots up to a read-only file system that you can use to teach yourself linux, do shell scripting, host temporary web sites, etc, and then just reboot back to Windows.

Otherwise, if you are still interested in dual-booting, it's a bit of a pain in the butt, but HOW-TOs are available. I'll send you a link. The general idea is, make a boot partition, a Windows partition, and a linux partition, then use either LILO or GRUB as your boot loader, prompting you to boot to either WinXP or Linux. I've done it on my Dell laptop, but like I said, it was not exactly "point-and-click".

Best of luck to you, whichever path you choose.

This site is rather verbose and technical, but at least it's not vague.
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux...w2k-HOWTO.html

i guess its pretty simple ...
ur current system is windows xp ..so there is nothing much to do to install FC4 in dual boot ... just get the cd's ... start with the first cd ...it will guide u through ... ur main thing will start with partitioning ... best way to prepare for is ... leaving appropriate space free before starting installation ... on winxp use DM (disk management) to free up around 10 gb of space ... i mean free space if u wanna save ur windows file ...
then go for manual partitioning... when the option comes .. before that everything wud be fairly simple ... in manual partition u will see ur 10 gb free space ... now u have to create minimum 3 partitions with 3 mount points ..
/root
/boot
swap
it will ask for file system needed .. use ext2
allocate 100 mb for /boot
swap shud be double the size of ur RAM and its a different file system altogether ... u dont need a mount point for that ... just choose swap file system and provide the size ( normally double size of RAM)
rest wotever is left can be assigned to /root that is around 9 gb ... which can cover ur full installation and also provide with decent work space
proceed ... choose type of installation ... u can customise as u want .. if its ur first chance then u can possibly go for everything install ... which can be achieved by custom install ..
other type of install like workstation are also fine .. but it doesnt give u server's which u can upgrade later ...
so dont worry u can always upgrade ...
then it will ask to configure ethernet card ... which is pretty simple .. provide the ip manually (thats wot most ppl do ) that wud be network related and depend on ur network n DNS and all
then another important thing comes .. its grub ... it will ask if u want grub on MBR or boot partition ... choose MBR ... thts wot i did . then it will ask to make an entry for winxp in grub ..u can easily do it as its graphical ...(it will tell u tht OS is being detected .. u will just have to name it ). it may also ask for grub password .. if u r good at remembering passwords .. then u can keep a password .. and then it will ask for root passsword .. this password shud not be lost ... supply it .. and click on install
u r done ... u will get dual boot ...

Edit /etc/lilo.conf (if you use lilo bootloder)[/I][/I]

#this is boot for windows
other=dos
root=/dev/hda1
table=/dev/hda

#this is boot for Fedora
image=/boot/vmlinuz-fedora
root=/dev/hda3 #this is place for linux installed
label=fedora