Hello all im new to linux...

I was wondering if I could install linux to my computer which already has Win98 on it.

Also do i have to buy Linux? or is it free?

I would like to have maybe a startup screen on my computer to pick Linux or Windows


thanks

You can install Linux on a computer with Windows already on it, however you will need free unpartitioned hard disk. You might be able to get this by using a program such as "Partition Magic" to resize your existing Windows partitions. You could also buy a new hard disk drive.

Linux is free, you can download it from the Internet, order it from companies who download it for you (for about £10) or buy a box set. A box set usually comes with paper manuals and support in addition to the software. Newbies are usually happiest with Mandrake Linux from http://www.mandrake.com/

Most distros of Linux install a bootloader called "lilo", this (if configured correctly - and most are) presents you with a menu when you boot, this lets you select which OS you want to use.

Using different system on one machine is called a "dual boot". Most modern Linux distros do it by default (of course, if there is Windows installed). Search this site for more info. It has been described so many times that you'll find everything you'd like to know about it.
Linux is released on GPL (GNU Public License, www.gnu.org). You can download distros (different versions of Linux) for free. You can also buy a boxed pack with books and technical support (or buy just to support your favourite distro).

I recommend Mandrake linux, too.


It is free and can be downloaded from the Internet.


Mandrake is ideal for those who come from windows:


- it can squeeze windows to get space for Linux (by default). So you do not need to have or create manually a free partition for Linux. Although you will still need about 1.5G free space on your HDD.


- dual boot is the default option during Mandrake install.

I would suggest Red Hat, it's very user friendly and the with X and KDE setup it can look and act very much like windows does, minus the blue screens and constant reboots. Disk Druid makes it easy to repartition your hard drive, and the retail version comes with many spiffy apps, and nice manuals. But then again, I'm not a real big fan of Mandrake...I would say it's between those two distros, 'drake has a little bit too much fluff for my liking.

well i tried downloading Linux Mandrake and it times out at 200megs.. when i restart it, it wants to override old file. Is there any why to keep the 200 and add to it?

You can try download accelerator, I used that to download the 3 RH7.3 cd's, Went pretty fast, about 30mins for each cd. It has a resume funtion, but havnt had to use it so I dont know much about it. I beleave the FTP server has to support resume for it to work.

http://www.speedbit.com/DefaultT.asp?

or just do it under linux using wget with the -c option....

Or under Windows with the wget -c option

http://wget.sunsite.dk/ has links to Windows binaries of wget