Please forgive me if this is already answered, I just don't even know where
to begin in searching the threads.

I have WinXP installed on a new 160 Gig HD. I have my former 20 Gig HD
available.

I have never tried Linux before, but am interested in learning. I have
researched the question of dual booting, but it appears that I need to
repartition, etc. the NTFS drive to make Grub or Lilo work. I am also
afraid that if my wife encounters the dual boot prompt, her head will just
explode. (Non-Techie)

I want to install a Linux distribution on the 20 gig HD and manually switch
the drives (if neccesary) either through BIOS or manually opening the case
so I can experiment and learn.

Now Question 1
Can I install Linux this way?

Question 2 (Not an intentional arguement starter)
What is a simple flavor of Linux for a newbie to cut his teeth on? Use is
solely as a home desktop I need Office-like functionality. I curently use
Openoffice and Mozilla Firefox for Windows. Any suggestions?

Spot wrote:

> I have WinXP installed on a new 160 Gig HD. I have my former 20 Gig HD
> available.
>
> I have never tried Linux before, but am interested in learning. I have
> researched the question of dual booting, but it appears that I need to
> repartition, etc. the NTFS drive to make Grub or Lilo work. I am also
> afraid that if my wife encounters the dual boot prompt, her head will just
> explode. (Non-Techie)

You don't need to repartition.

Also if you install grub (or LILO) your wife will only be asked
if she wants to run Linux or Windows.
If she doesn't answer within a specified number of seconds
it will start the chosen system, presumably Windows in your case.
I don't see how you can avoid that if you want to run both systems.

> I want to install a Linux distribution on the 20 gig HD and manually
> switch the drives (if neccesary) either through BIOS or manually opening
> the case so I can experiment and learn.

You don't need to switch the drives at all, by either means.

> Now Question 1
> Can I install Linux this way?

The boot-loader (grub or LILO) is normally installed
in the MBR of the first disk, ie the master disk on the first controller.
Normally the second disk is installed as slave disk on the first controller.
These are called hda and hdb in Linux parlance.

> Question 2 (Not an intentional arguement starter)
> What is a simple flavor of Linux for a newbie to cut his teeth on? Use is
> solely as a home desktop I need Office-like functionality. I curently use
> Openoffice and Mozilla Firefox for Windows. Any suggestions?

That's a religious question.
I run Fedora Core 2.
But I would suggest getting a Knoppix CD to play around with.
This allows you to run Linux from a CD
without using your hard disk or disks at all.
If you want you can then install Knoppix on a hard disk -
or install some other distribution.


--
Timothy Murphy
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland

Tim, Thank you for the explanation. Hopefully only one simple question
left.

You said
> The boot-loader (grub or LILO) is normally installed
> in the MBR of the first disk, ie the master disk on the first controller.
> Normally the second disk is installed as slave disk on the first
controller.
> These are called hda and hdb in Linux parlance.

I thought that to install LILO to the MBR would require repartitioning the
primary drive to force LILO to the front.

Can you, or anyone else, point me to a tutorial for installing to an
existing MBR? My biggest fear is that I would need to re-install XP and
lose all of my wifes settings etc...

Spot wrote:

> Please forgive me if this is already answered, I just don't even know
> where to begin in searching the threads.
>
> I have WinXP installed on a new 160 Gig HD. I have my former 20 Gig HD
> available.
>
> I have never tried Linux before, but am interested in learning. I have
> researched the question of dual booting, but it appears that I need to
> repartition, etc. the NTFS drive to make Grub or Lilo work. I am also
> afraid that if my wife encounters the dual boot prompt, her head will just
> explode. (Non-Techie)
>
> I want to install a Linux distribution on the 20 gig HD and manually
> switch the drives (if neccesary) either through BIOS or manually opening
> the case so I can experiment and learn.
>
> Now Question 1
> Can I install Linux this way?
>
> Question 2 (Not an intentional arguement starter)
> What is a simple flavor of Linux for a newbie to cut his teeth on? Use is
> solely as a home desktop I need Office-like functionality. I curently use
> Openoffice and Mozilla Firefox for Windows. Any suggestions?

You can certainly install Linux this way. The boot loader has a default OS
which it will boot after a set period of time. Set it to boot Windows in
two seconds and it will give you time to select your Linux install without
disturbing your wife. You don't really need to partition anything. You
can just use the whole 20GB drive for your Linux install. Most modern
desktop distributions come with Openoffice and Mozilla installed and set
up. I suggest you try a live CD - full OS boots off a CD - like Knoppix or
Kanotix or PCLinuxOS or MEPIS or all of them. It's a good way to "cut your
teeth" and if you find one you like you can install it to the HD.

--
OS squared: open software times open standards.

> I thought that to install LILO to the MBR would require repartitioning the
> primary drive to force LILO to the front.

No, the MBR is different from your ordinary partitions. It's there on your
hard drive already, it's just that LiLo replaces the boot up code thats
normally on your MBR (and invisible) with something that gives you a menu.

> Can you, or anyone else, point me to a tutorial for installing to an
> existing MBR? My biggest fear is that I would need to re-install XP and
> lose all of my wifes settings etc...

Any distribution that you choose, whether its Fedora, Mandrake, Debian,
Knoppix etc etc will handle all the setup of LiLo automatically. It won't
touch your XP partition unless you specifically tell it to (even then it
wouldn't be the LiLo setup that alters your partition - that would happen
elsewhere). The worst case scenario (other than a catastrophic hardware
failure) is that the XP settings don't get added to the LiLo menu, however
that doesn't mean that the XP partition has been destroyed just that the
data hasn't been added to the LiLo config file, something that can be
easily remedied from within Linux and it wouldn't have lost any of your
data.

Its very commendable that you're making sure that nothing untoward is going
to happen however hopefully this e-mail and the advice from other posters
will help put your mind at ease.

Best wishes,
Scott G.

(P.S. Its still a good idea to back up all your data first!)

Spot <kseise@iwon.com> wrote:
> I have never tried Linux before, but am interested in learning. I have
> researched the question of dual booting, but it appears that I need to
> repartition, etc. the NTFS drive

Yes, of course. You need somewhere to put linux, or indeed any other
operating system (such as w98). Therefore you need to make space for
it. That usually involves resizing some existing partitions and/or
repartitioning, but not necesarily. It depends on how you are
partitioned now.


> to make Grub or Lilo work.

Nonsense. It's not "for" that at all!


> I am also
> afraid that if my wife encounters the dual boot prompt, her head will just
> explode. (Non-Techie)

Well, either wrap her head in something, or don't let the dual boot be
visible. Lilo at least can be configured to never show a prompt unless
you hit the tab key in the first two or three seconds after booting, and
to boot by default to whatever system you wish.

Peter

Spot <kseise@iwon.com> wrote:
> Tim, Thank you for the explanation. Hopefully only one simple question
> left.

> You said
> > The boot-loader (grub or LILO) is normally installed
> > in the MBR of the first disk, ie the master disk on the first controller.
> > Normally the second disk is installed as slave disk on the first
> controller.
> > These are called hda and hdb in Linux parlance.

> I thought that to install LILO to the MBR would require repartitioning the
> primary drive to force LILO to the front.

The MBR is not on your partitions! It is by definiton the first
(zeroth) sector of the disk, and as such lies well outside (and
before) the partitioned area.

> Can you, or anyone else, point me to a tutorial for installing to an
> existing MBR?

Youd on't seem to understand.

> My biggest fear is that I would need to re-install XP and
> lose all of my wifes settings etc...

Then stop fearing. That solves your problem. Why shuld whatever you do
to the MBR affect anything whatever that you have on the disk let alone
cause you to "reinstall" (yecch, such a windows concept - smacking of
windows-taught user helplessness).

Peter

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 12:15:31 -0400, Spot wrote:

> Tim, Thank you for the explanation. Hopefully only one simple question
> left.
>
> You said
>> The boot-loader (grub or LILO) is normally installed
>> in the MBR of the first disk, ie the master disk on the first controller.
>> Normally the second disk is installed as slave disk on the first
> controller.
>> These are called hda and hdb in Linux parlance.
>
> I thought that to install LILO to the MBR would require repartitioning the
> primary drive to force LILO to the front.
>
> Can you, or anyone else, point me to a tutorial for installing to an
> existing MBR? My biggest fear is that I would need to re-install XP and
> lose all of my wifes settings etc...
>
If that is your biggest fear, then learn to make backups. I know people
get mad when people break things.

As suggested, a run from CD distribution (like knoppix) may be a
good starting point. That way you won't be in too much danger of breaking
things- but you're right to be cautious because it is certainly possible
to break things.

If you choose to install a distribution on your 20G hard disk, then I
recommend making a boot floppy only- do not install either lilo or grub
until you know the difference between a partition and MBR. If you don't
have a floppy drive, then you'll have to learn a bit first. In that case,
I recommend installing grub at the MBR on your primary disk, but do not
change anything else on the 160G disk.

Here is something you can study to learn about dual booting:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...ode/index.html

--
The truth is a virus.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0100436/quotes

Thank you all for your help. I think I got it now. I'll give it a shot and
see how it goes.

I tried the Knoppix route once, but the download and burn option seemed to
just lock up the system. Must have been a bad burn or corrupted download.

I will try a regular store bought disc this time.


"Scott G" <s.grandison@dontspamme.btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:cjc4li$mq$1@cpca14.uea.ac.uk...
> > I thought that to install LILO to the MBR would require repartitioning
the
> > primary drive to force LILO to the front.
>
> No, the MBR is different from your ordinary partitions. It's there on
your
> hard drive already, it's just that LiLo replaces the boot up code thats
> normally on your MBR (and invisible) with something that gives you a menu.
>
> > Can you, or anyone else, point me to a tutorial for installing to an
> > existing MBR? My biggest fear is that I would need to re-install XP and
> > lose all of my wifes settings etc...
>
> Any distribution that you choose, whether its Fedora, Mandrake, Debian,
> Knoppix etc etc will handle all the setup of LiLo automatically. It won't
> touch your XP partition unless you specifically tell it to (even then it
> wouldn't be the LiLo setup that alters your partition - that would happen
> elsewhere). The worst case scenario (other than a catastrophic hardware
> failure) is that the XP settings don't get added to the LiLo menu, however
> that doesn't mean that the XP partition has been destroyed just that the
> data hasn't been added to the LiLo config file, something that can be
> easily remedied from within Linux and it wouldn't have lost any of your
> data.
>
> Its very commendable that you're making sure that nothing untoward is
going
> to happen however hopefully this e-mail and the advice from other posters
> will help put your mind at ease.
>
> Best wishes,
> Scott G.
>
> (P.S. Its still a good idea to back up all your data first!)

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 11:47:34 -0400, Spot wrote:

>I am also
> afraid that if my wife encounters the dual boot prompt, her head will just
> explode. (Non-Techie)

No need for wife to see a dual-boot prompt if you set dual booting from a
floppy.

(This also causes no change to the Windows MBR.)

For wife, just remove the floppy. No dual-boot menu will appear and the
machine will then boot Windows as normal.

For self, insert floppy and select from dual-boot menu.


(This is the arrangement I use.)

--
Maurice Batey
(Retired in Hampshire, UK)
www.maurice.eurobell.co.uk
(Remove 'antispam.' to reply by email)