Hello all. I ordered my new box and it's coming this week. I was going to let it be 100% microsoft free, but I still want to play games (I know wine or other's like it allow us to play games on but Im definitely not knowledgable enough to even consider trying games in linux).

I've decided to partition my disk and dual boot (Redhat 9.0 and Windows XP Professional) I was wondering, which do I install first? Windows / Linux?

I know if I install Windows first I can then keep a part of the disk free to put linux onto, but I want to know if this is the best option? Is it a better idea to put linux on first?

Also, if I want to format the whole disk (Only one hdd) and start fresh, do I just boot into dos, format c:\ and use a Install CD to reinstall or is there a better method?

Thanks in advance

always install windows first as will always blindly overwrite your boot sector, so installing a bootloader like grub or lilo will get totlaly obliterated by windows... windows first, then linux.

you wouldn't format the whole thing, you will need to repartition it in fdisk (dos or unix) to create a number of partitions and go from there.

If you plan on formatting the entire HDD, you do not need to use fdisk to create new partitions.
Both WindowsXP and Linux allow you to create partitions of specific size during the installation from the CDs.

As for which OS goes first, it does not matter anymore if you plan on using WindowsXP.
You can always use the Linux Boot Disk (don't forget to create it) to boot the system and re-install GRUB or Lilo back to the MBR.

Thanks for your replies. As always you guys at LQ have been very helpful.

yep yep,

if you are getting a new box, will the HDD be totally empty?

if so, just follow as my pre-posters have already suggested.

First install Windows. Create a partition of the size you want Windows to work on (probably try to calculate the HDD space the games need that you want to run off from there). Leave the rest "unpartitioned".

Once Windows is installed, make sure you restart it at least once to make sure the master boot sector gets written for sure (don't know but I had problems once when I didn't restart windows after a total installation and installed linux...for some reason things wouldn't go right) - so make sure you restart Windows once or twice.

After that pop in the first CD of linux (which ever distro you're trying to run) and go from there...if you are doing RH, make sure you are "Configure Advanced Boot Configuration" or something like that to make sure it loads the boot manager to the MBR.

Well, this is the way I did it and it worked almost everytime (except that one incident where i didn't restart windows and immediately put in linux after windows was loaded).

Hope this helps! And Dual Boot is the best as said - Windows for gaming (although there are many great native games and many others that work through mentioned applications such as wineX) - and Linux for the rest.

I can't stress it enoug, but I've been working with MS Operating Systems ever since I started out with computers....and god..linux has been running for about 2 weeks now...I just love it soooooo much more than Windows LOL..

Hope this helps!

It's not only the games, the hardware too. Try getting a USB ADSL modem to work/drivers in Linux! Dual booting is best of both worlds

thanks retired soldier. Yes its a brand new hdd (totally empty)

So I think i'll do that.

Shot! Cheers

you're welcome Boggit!

and softgun - no comment hehe

I ordered the new box with a nForce2 mboard, Im hoping that wont give me trouble (gonna try just put Redhat9.0 on it!)

For Windows, use FAT32 partitions instead of NTFS. Windows XP defaults to NTFS, so you may have to format the partitions manually.

Use ethernet modems instead of USB modems they are a lot easier to setup.

nForce chipsets and ATI doesn't mix well. This might change since NVidia added AGP gart support.

Why Redhat. Why not SUSE, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slackware, etc.