Right so my situation is a little obscure and from all the posts I've read through I can't find one that suits me well enough.

My PC's hard drive recently went on the fritz so I backed up all my data, got a brand new Terrabyte hard drive and then put all my stuff on there. I also plugged in the fault drive as a secondary and ahev cleared most of the stuff off it. It's separated into two partitions; E: and F: but together make about 600 gigs. I then have two external Terrabyte hard drives, it's a long story but their connected via USB.

Now I really like the idea fo getting to grips with Linux. I don't want to use a LIVE CD, I've done that already and I want to see how I get along using it as a proper OS. I also really need to keep the Windows Vista for several reasons, most importantly for iTunes which I use to keep my iPhone and iPad up to date and I've heard iTunes and linux don't get along too well, even with programs like WINE. So obviously I'm looking to dual boot and keep all my data but what would be the best way to go about it? Stick it on my primary drive? Or on my slightly faulty drive? Or on one of my two externals? On the bright side, because I'm on a fairly new hard drive, my Vista runs really smoothly, and so I shouldn't encounter too many bugs that windows is renowned for a long the way...

I'd also like to be able to access all my data from both OSs so I don't have to keep jumping from one OS to another. Is that possible? or simple to accomplish?

I have a pretty good Nvidia graphics card too, so I'd appreciate it if someone could explain how I get XGl working on Fedora once it's all set up.

Thanks for all your help
Z

just be warned
the current version of fedora 15 uses Gnome3 and gcc4.6 .
there are not to many programs yet tested /and /or built for gnome3 .
and the same for fedora 15's gcc 4.6 there are not many programs that will build with gcc 4.6 yet .

being a VERY early adopter of VERY new software has its drawbacks .

BUT if that is what you want ....


you WILL have to hack some software inorder to get some source programs to build using gcc4.6 or 4.5 .

One of the reason I chose Fedora was because I liked the simplicity and instinctive appearance of GNOME3, would you suggest using an older version of Fedora and if so which one? I have to be honest, I don't have a clue what "GCC4.6" means...

For a beginner I would put the two O.S's on the same drive. Grub is capable of booting off different drives but in my opinion GRUB is not treated as a science. The documentation is like reading a mystery novel. To understand GRUB you have to get into how it interacts with the hardware. Usually grub will behave perfectly with two O.S's on the same drive ,otherwise I personally have had problems with it. It will be fine for months and than you won't be able to boot onto one of them and the install disk won't fix the MBR so you have to use intensive means to repair it. If you have substantial evidence that your drive is failing I don't see the reason to keep it, like the O.S says you have bad sectors or something. I have had bad CD/DVD burners that caused bios not to recognize the hard-drive so you might want keep that in mind. With the limited info furnished (do you have a Vista installation disk?) ,I would install linux on the external hard drive and you should be able to boot off that through bios. Your BIOS start up screen should inform you which button to tap while bios is starting to change what to boot from first and so on. BIOS is nothing to be afraid of but don't change things without researching what they do a little. There is a way to restore BIOS settings if you mess it all up as well usually.

No

fedora 14 will hit End Of Life in about 4 to 5 months .There will be no support for 14 ,30 days after fedora 16 comes out in about 4 months.

opensuse 11.4 has gnome3 and a bit of a longer life 2 ( 26 months) years vs. 13 months


and a bit more stable but a lot of us are staying with gnome2 for some time -- until gnome3 matures .
The same thing happened with KDE when ti moved from kde3 to kde4

install fedora 15 -- see if you like it

Opensuse 11.4? Would that be a good choice for someone new to Linux?

suse is fairly good for new users
the only problem would be the music and video software
having to set up the pacman repo and change over what is on the install dvd to the pacman repo versions of the software ( it is a DIFFERENT build of the programs )
read the wiki

living inside the new iron curtain of patents and copyright " the USA" it is "fun" .

but try a few different distros and find one that YOU like
Ubuntu is a good new to linux
opensuse is
fedora ? can be BUT for a small group of people - it i not for everyone
use it for 1.5 years and after 3 new installs or 3 upgrades ( if it works) see what you think .
I decided to get off the fedora "rollercoaster " after fedora 11

I keep telling myself not to be overwhelmed by this whole new linux majigga but it all seems incredibly complicated considering how logical I'm told it all is. I'm no programmer but I'm fairly good with computers. I get the different distros, I can even kinda understand the way the console is used to install programs sort of. But pacman has be totally baffled. A package manager? What does that even mean... And what does it have to do with music and video software?

the fedora docs are a good read , even if you do not end up using it .

you will learn the basics

repo= software repository of prebuilt programs
package manager - ( add and remove software ) = manages the installing of prebuilt software

"pacman" is a suse repo that has legal and illegal ( depending on where you live ) patent & copyright encumbered software
like .mp3 and .mpeg and .wmv and real's .rm format
and lets not forget libdvdcss to play dvd movies

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/index.html
suse
http://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page
http://en.opensuse.org/Portalocumentation