Planning installation
 

Hi everyone,

I am about to download ISO files for a SuSe LINUX OS using HTTP and burn them to CD with a view to creating a dual boot system, at least for the time being until I am more familiar with LINUX.I am currently running windows xp with SP2.

Can anyone advise me on the most successful method of doing this. In particular should I just download using the windows sytem download manager or is there any free (on a low budget here) download software available that would be preferable. I am planning to burn the images to disk using the image burning facility of Nero Express, again, will this work or is there a better method. I will be downloading via a 1Mb cable connection.

Thanks very much, and thanks for providing a great forum.

System spec:

AMD Athlon xp 2400+
40Gb Hd
K7S8X Motherboard
512 Mb RAM

Downloading with Windows; OK, Burning with Nero; good, 1Mb connection; great, get some other distros and burn them while your at it...

I would suggest if possible getting a second HD for Linux install... It's easier all the way around, no resizing your NTFS partition trying to squeeze room for a Linux part... either way if you have the space on your existing drive you can use the partitioning tools available during your install to resize and create the Linux Parts...

One more thing... BACK UP!

KC

I have never dual-booted with Windows - I would echo kencaz's statement and use a separate drive for Linux if you can. Although people dual-boot all the time, a separate drive means less chance of screwing up something, especially for a n00b.

I've never used Nero Express, but I use the Enterprise Edition of Nero and I rarely have a bad ISO burn. Downloading with your browser should be fine. Nice broadband speed you have there.

Hi,

I have done exactly what you are planning to do.

I have both systems on one HDD, I resized my windows partition using partition magic but if you don't have that then the install system that suse has will do things automatically for you (or you can choose manually if you read what it says really carefully, it's less than clear though). If not the Mandriva install is even easier (fully graphical) and very similar in usability to suse.

Once you have the partitioning done its easy to install, I had no problems.

There are a number of extras to install after the initial install such as mp3 support and DVD players etc. All the answers you need can be found on this site. I may put together a guide bringing them all together from the notebook I have here.

You may need to do more than one install to get the system you want as your experience increases, this is normal (I think!)

Have fun!

BACKUPFIRST!!!!!!

Thanks everyone,
I downloaded the ISO for disk 1 of SuSe this morning using the browser and and have created a CD from it using the image burning facility of Nero. I can report a good burn and now have a bootable CD.

Thanks for the advice everyone and once I have downloaded / burned the rest of the disks I will certainly back up everything down to my toaster settings and shoe size before I proceed with hdd surgery.

With this in mind and with the knowledge that Kirmonkey is running multi boot on one hdd I will probably go ahead and do this. I am prepared to run the risk of having to reinstall XP if necessary so won't come whining if anything hits the fan. At the moment XP is running on the NTFS. If I do reinstall would FAT32 be preferable or easier / safer to partition? At some point though I will install a second hard drive (then I could have two LINUX distros :-).

I'll come back to let you know what happens next,

Thanks again.

It Flies
 

Thanks for your help everyone. I had clean downloads of all ISOs and good burns on all disks. partitioning and formatting with YaST was smooth and I am now happily running a dual boot system. My first step toward slipping the M$ leash :-).

Even my internet connection and printer worked with no manual configuration.

I had to make a few screen adjustments initally as it was trapezoid and a bit off center but it does'nt seem to be symptomatic of any deeper problem so far. The only bug I need to iron out is that I have no sound under LINUX as it tells me that the sound mixer was not found. If anyone could give me some tips on how to get that up and running I'd be grateful.

I'm looking forward to some fun here!

First have a search for a solution to your sound problem, if that doesn't work them post a specific thread witha clear subject line to solve the problem, people who know the answer may not read this thread.

Sound solution
 

Thanks Kirmonkey, certainly a tip worth remembering for the future. As for the sound problem itself, I had a snoop round on my new installation and looked in YaST at the hardware settings. In the sound settings dialog I found the option "Enable workaround for buggy interrupt on some motherboards". I'm running my sound straight off of a K7S8X motherboard with no seperate sound card so I thought I'd take a flyer and enable this. Hey presto, I have sound. To be honest I'm so impressed with this distro and it's "work straight out of the box" capability that it is now the operating system I use virtually all the time. To the extent that I have transferred my contacts list to kontact and configured this application as my default emeil client. I get the feeling that SuSe, along with this forum is going to provide me with a great oppertunity to learn about LINUX before I think about getting a bit more adventurous and installing something more challenging, such as Fedora perhaps. As always I'm very open to suggestions and ideas on what may be my best way forward from here when it comes to satisfying my curiosity and thirst for greater knowledge of computing.