Dual Booting: Windows XP and SuSE 9.1 Pro
 

Hello, I am a total linux newbie and would love to start using it ! I've heard many things about it and I finally gave in and am determined to try it ( If I ever get it set up ! )

Okay first things first, I'm running an Athlon 64 3200+ processor with a 120 GB IDE drive.

My friend had uploaded ISO verions of linux suse 9.1 pro for me and I had downloaded them and burned them on discs.

I have 2 partitions; My C: is my NTFS partition with 90 GBs for windows, my D: is a 30 GB partition, unformatted and I'm hoping to install linux on D:.

Now my question is, what to do next !?

Have I done everything right up until now ? How do I install it ? How do I set up the dual boot ?

Thanks in advance.

Dual booting
 

Well if my experiences with dual booting Redhat and WinXP are anything to go by, here's a warning. Back up your master boot record before you start. If the installer gives you a choice between overwriting your MBR and doing something else, do the something else.

There is a fundamental difference between the way Windows handles dual boots and the way Linux does. The Linux way is to have one boot loader to rule them all - usually GRUB. Windows expects each OS to have its own boot loader, but that each of these should give other boot loaders a chance; this approach is called chaining.

Unfortunately, while the "Single boot loader" approach is highly recommended if all the OSs you wish to boot assume this approach, you can have problems if that's not true. So if what you want to do is multi-boot a bunch of different linux flavours, then put GRUB in charge. Otherwise, your mileage may vary, but you might want to consider doing it the Windows way.

Just for the record, the problems I experienced weren't with running Windows or Redhat per se, but rather with other tools that needed to understand the MBR and partition sectors, such as imaging and partitioning tools.

During installation Yast will create an extra partition for Linux so you can delete your 30 gb partition.

Okay, So I deleted my 30 GB partition,

Put the first disc in and reboot my PC, but when it comes to the installation part, where do I want to install it ?

I'm not good with linux language quite yet..

Everything on the suse installer program yast2 is well explained, and the install goes in an interview style. It's very easy.

If you deleted the 30G partition, you have 30G unformatted. This is good. yast2 will boot up, let you choose the language, mouse, keyboard, first. Then, it will ask for some choices from you.

In the partitioning screen, it will tell you to install suse in the unformatted 30G (make sure you BIOS can boot the last 30G of the disc). There are different ways to run the partitioner, one of them is to let yast2 do everything alone, with no intervention. Other is the expert option, with all options manual (it's not hard, tough).


You can choose this one. yast2 will create 2 partitions: / and a swap. The windows partition will remain untouched.
After partitioning, it will let you choose packages, etc... My advice: choose all of them, as you have enough diskspace. you can switch to detailed selection and choose all packages manually.
After that, hw configuration, etc, oyu should know some details about your hardware. Them choose root password, no big deal...

The suse install process is very easy,m friend. You shouldn't find problems.

Post again if you need more help.