Hey all,

I'm new to this site and new to linux, can't wait to get started using it and hopefully get rid of my windows o/s completley

anyways here goes, i'm building a new computer for myself and i want to put two hard drives in it , one with win2k and the other with Knoppix on it, my question is , how do i go about installing the knoppix on it's own drive and being able to select in between o/s's at boot. The windows o/s install will not be an issue , linux .........not sure .....any help/suggestions would be appreciated greatly

Thanks
Barry

If you're going to be building this system from scratch, and are planning on getting two hard drives, look into some RAID controllers - might be better to link the drives together for better performance. It woudl be slightly harder to configure, though.
Even for two seperate drives, it would be a good thing to distribute your OS's over both drives - no sense having one HDD sitting there mostly idle while the other thrashes away, especially if you're hoping to kill Windoze altogether.
Check this thread for some help on partitioning:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=142529

As for install guides.... they're a dime a dozen and no one here is going to type one out. For knoppix-specific, check their website. Google is your best friend, and we'll help with the details.

--Rounan

(hey, way to be from Canada, eh? )

hey hey,

appreciate the reply , but i got a question, why would i want to partition anything if i'm going to use two HDD"s , Raid?

it's gonna be a while before windows is gone, if ever, since i'm not the only person using the pc (wife) but what i wanted to know more than anything is if it is going to be different than just actually installing two o/s's on both drives and then changing the boot sequence to switch? that's my plan on doing it , one of the drives is in my current pc as well if that matters ,


Barry

Short answer: performance.

Longer answer:
If you're running a system with Linux entirely on one drive and Windoze entirely on another, at any given time you're only using one hard drive - half the system's I/O.

If, instead, you have both OS's spread over both disks - particularly, keeping Windows and some linux partitions on one disk, and the rest of Linux plus any common files (music, video, anything both OS's would access) on the other - then at least sometimes you're using BOTH disks.
If you're using Windows, it's reading music files from a seperate drive - so opening a program while running winamp in the background will take less time.
In linux, the benefits are even greater - read the thread I linked to to find out why.

RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) is the next step - rather than keeping different files seperate on different disks, RAID lets you keep EVERY file on BOTH disks. Instead of writing a whole file to one disk or the other, a RAID controller treats both disks like one block, and writes the file to both at once, in little "stripes". This way, anytime you're doing disk I/O, you're using both drives - optimum performance.
This is mostly only necessary for servers or other applications that are really disk-dependant, it can be done in software or hardware (hardware being faster but more expensive), and is somewhat more difficult to configure.

In other words, you probably don't need RAID (but it'd be faster, regardless), but splitting up your partitions is a very good idea.

--Rounan

sounds good , but i actually want both drives completely sepearate so that nothing affects either one, i want them to be like two different computers basicaly is what i mean, am i going to be able to do this the same as installing it on two computers , one with windoz and the other with linux and switch between them by changing my boot sequence?

... don't know why you'd want that unless you plan on swapping out the drives to other computers. No advantage otherwise, just performance going to waste. But hey, it's your box.

All you'd need to do is exactly what you described - install 'Doze on one HD, Linux on the other, and use lilo or grub to switch between OS's at boot.

--Rounan

ya i dunno , it's a me thing i guess (i'm fucked, j/k) so using the bios to switch between drives, do you think that will work , can you explain this lilo or grug to me , ........man i'm so new to this linux stuff and never dual booted any way before, don't want to annoy ya, just trying to get some facts


Thanks
Barry

using the BIOS might work, but would be very cumbersome - you'd have to interrupt the boot sequence with F1 every time, navigate through the menus, change the boot order, and reboot.
LILO and Grub are bootloaders - very small programs that are stored in the MBR, and bring up a menu on boot that allows you to choose which OS to boot into every time you restart.
Simple idea and easy to configure.

Google for more if you're interested.

--Rounan

sweet!, sounds like that's the way i'll go then fer sure, and that will work ok with my dual hdd setup eh? any one better than the other?


barry

Grub's more advanced.
Lilo's easier to set up.

Both will work for your configuration, and since all you're looking for is a simple "Windows/Linux" switch, I'd recommend LILO. That's what I use. That's what many distros install by default.

--Rounan

Thanks eh , Will advise,

Barry