ok im brand new to linux i want to try it out but i dont want to leave windows behind

i have
amd athlon xp 3000+ with 768mb of ram
a ANUS A7n8x-e Deluxe mother bord
i have 2 harddrives(want to run dule boot)
a DVD drive a CDRW drive and a flopy disk
i use a NEC multisync LCD montor
no sound card but my graphics card is nvidia GeForce FX 5700LE

ok so
i want to run a dule boot system with windows on my c drive and linux on my d drive the thing is i have movies music and photos on my d drive that wont fit on the c drive so i wanted to know if ill still be able to access them from windows and linux if i put linux on the same drive alos i wanted to know what would be a good version of linux to start out with i dont mind reading lot of borning stuff to lean how to run it but i do want version of linux that dose have some stuff on it so i can start right away

thanks for whatever advice you can give me

Pritch

Personally, I reccommend Mandrake (sorry, I mean Mandriva) Linux. It has an easy install, and in that install, there is a program that lets you fool around with partitions, and I could have worded that better, but I think you get the point. When it asks you about partitioning in the install, choose custom, and on the top of the window, there should be a few tabs. Choose hdb from those tabs, and if the partition on that drive doesn't take the full drive, then just click auto-allocate. If it does take over the whole drive, then click on that section and click resize, and choose the size you want with the slider. Then, press OK and auto allocate. It's a lot simpler trhan it sounds.

Also, Mandriva automatically configures your bootloader, which lets you choose windows or linux on startup. I prefer Lilo, it has a nice look, but Grub is another option, but I'm not sure if that configures to boot to Windows without programming or whatever.

Just look at the tutorials on mandrivalinux.com, they are very helpful for first-time installers.

In order to install Linux on your computer you will have to create Linux partitions. If you create those partitions where data already exists that data WILL be destroyed.

Linux does not use a: b: c: drive etc... These are windoze labels that don't apply to Linux.

You will have to create free space on the drive you want to use for Linux by shrinking or removing a windoze partition in order to create Linux partitions.

If you're just wanting to play around with Linux and learn something about it and don't have the HDD space, consider a LiveCD distro like Knoppix or SimplYMepis as they will run totally from the CD. It won't be as fast as a HDD install, but at least it'll give you a chance to play around with Linux a little.

If you really want to install Linux, I'd suggest the first thing you do is some reading on disk partitioning.

thank you very much this is what i needed a place to start any other advice would be apricitated as well

i am new to linux but im not a computer noob i built my own computer and have started to hate windows so i am looking for a new way to go and i hope i have found it in linux

Pritch

You sound like the type that will be hooked in no time,good luck.

Best advice I can give at this point is to read anything and everything you can about Linux. www.distrowatch.org is a good place to start learning about the different distros.

i downloaded the 3 cd iso's for Mandriva and they wont burn to disk it says they are too big i dont understand why if anybuddy can help me out that would be great or if anybuddy can recomend a diffrent good linux to start with that could be very helpfull

thanks

Pritch

You should burn the image to disk - but as an image, not as a file. It has been documented with Roxio here - I have used Burnatonce if I had to burn ISO images from Windows.

I thought that I would add that resizing the XP's NTFS partition worked non-destructively for me when I installed Mandrake Linux on my laptop. If the Mandriva installation is based on Mandrake and uses the same partitioner program, you may get similar results. I would defrag the windows partition before starting however.

Ya, the install is exactly the same, just a few features added, after all, Mandriva LE 2005 was meant to be Mandrake Linux 10.2, but then they went crazy.

FYI, Burnatonce is wicked, I highly reccommend it.