I have finally given in to my inner geek and want to install Linux on my laptop to have a wee play.

I will admit, I am pretty much MS o/s thru and thru as this is all i've worked with in general over the last 10 years.

I am now running my first proper licenced copy of windows as well as my new Acer came with XP MCE preinstalled so i don't want to wipe it (yet!).

Can I just partition my hard drive to give over some space (10GB?) to a Linux install?

Will the install process allow me to make the machine dual boot?

What flavour of Linux would you recommend? Gentoo/Debian/Red Hat/other - I take it they are variations on a theme, i.e. the toolbar on the upper LHS in screenshots tends to look the same in all of them.

Do you think the Linux o/s will support most of my hardware in the laptop or do you tend to get issues with drivers, etc.

I use OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird thru Windows so I guess I can install Linux versions of these.

I also use uTorrent, Paintshop Pro, and other stuff - I am not sure about sourcing these (or equivalents).

Any information, potential pitfalls would be greatfully appreciated.

Cheers,

Steven.

I believe you can get a burnable image of Ubuntu which will allow you to run Linux off the CD - saves messing around with partitioning your drive, etc.

Rob.

Yeh - just been talking it over with our tech support guys.

They do not recommend going down the partition route, but rather installing vmware and then doing a virtual install.

Ubuntu or Debian appear to be the favourites at the moment.

bah thats a load of carp mate!

I ran xp and mandrake partitioned. I even used Partition Magic and NEVER had a problem

Try either Ubuntu/Mandriva or SuSe Live CD's and then what ever you like go with an install of it as it will run much faster.

I was and still am a fan of Mandrake now Mandriva. There forums are totally awesome for help hints and tips

I've been running Ubuntu on an old Tosh laptop for a while and here are some observations:

I have finally given in to my inner geek and want to install Linux on my laptop to have a wee play.

I will admit, I am pretty much MS o/s thru and thru as this is all i've worked with in general over the last 10 years.

Same here but had a background in Unix so wanted to see how it fared.

Can I just partition my hard drive to give over some space (10GB?) to a Linux install?

Will the install process allow me to make the machine dual boot?

Ubuntu at least installs Grub boot manager which I'm pretty sure can handle dual boot.

What flavour of Linux would you recommend? Gentoo/Debian/Red Hat/other - I take it they are variations on a theme, i.e. the toolbar on the upper LHS in screenshots tends to look the same in all of them.

Ubuntu seems fairly friendly and lots of things like common Windows keyboard shortcuts work which is handy when they've become second nature - ctrl-c/ctrl-v for example.

Do you think the Linux o/s will support most of my hardware in the laptop or do you tend to get issues with drivers, etc.

Maybe. The ACPI support doesn't work with my old laptop so no power options like standby on close lid, etc. Also once you get into support for more obscure hardware you're depending on a driver written by one guy on his own in a shed, and the quality drops dramatically.

I use OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird thru Windows so I guess I can install Linux versions of these.

yup

I also use uTorrent, Paintshop Pro, and other stuff - I am not sure about sourcing these (or equivalents).

Ubuntu delivers Gimp - a quite sophisicated but incredibly abstruse image editing package. No doubt there are others out there but there won't be a version of PSP.

Any information, potential pitfalls would be greatfully appreciated.

Be prepared for lots of minor irritations, a long learning curve finding out where the various utilities, log files etc. are stored, and a tendency to want to make it look like Windows (which can be done) at least initially. Support via forums is OK in some respects, but be prepared for quite a lot of impatient geeks who haven't got much time for newbies who didn't compile their OS themselves, and lots of condescending remarks about Gnome (the default window manager), because they all prefer something more aggressively "unix-y".

Good luck

Nick

The partitioner within Ubuntu is great. I repartitioned a live NTFS partition without any issues (except it had to run chkdsk on itself straight afterwards). Running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 on 2 Machines at home, one desktop and one laptop.

I'd go with Robs suggestion of using the live CD first. OK its slower but it gives you a really good feel for the system.

I'd recommend about 10gig of space to safely install all the apps you want to play about - there's just so much choice!

You can customise GRUB to change the default boot, on my PC its ubuntu but on the general household laptop its windows because mum's not quite converted yet.

I'd suggest reading through the ubuntuwiki site - REALLY good for howto's and info, and very easy to follow.

I've been running Ubuntu

How did the upgrade to the newer version go?

To the OP:

As rob says you can get Linux Live CD's:

The current ubuntu one is here:

Download Ubuntu | Ubuntu

The install CD and live CD are the same thing now.

6.06 is a stable version

7.10 is more up to date but may be less stable or indeed more so depending on the snapshot used.

They will even ship you CD's free of charge :

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

but at present that is the previous version of 7.04.

I would allocate 15-20GB if you have it to Linux.

When creating linux partitions within the 15-20 GB space I would do the following:

- /boot (ext3) = 150MB

- /swap (swap) = 2* The amount of RAM you have.

- /home (ext3, XFS, or resierFS) = 3-5GB or more if you have space (This is where you and all other users will keep your profile and data)

- / (ext3, XFS, or resierFS) = 10GB minimum or more if you have space (This is the main file system root)

Of the file systems ext3 is probably the most stable and certainly the easiest to find help with on the net. It is a bit slower than XFS (SGI) and reiserFS under some conditions but ext3 is easier to recover and read from windows too.

If you want any specific ubuntu/Linux help or just somebody to shout at, you are more than welcome to add me on MSN and give me a poke.

Thanks for the info guys - much appreciated.

As soon as I can find a free evening I will try running a Live CD to check it out.

Steven.

One thing to bear in mind when creating partitions - quote from wikipedia

"Technically, a hard disk should contain either as many as four primary partitions, or one to three primaries along with a single extended partition. Each of these partitions are described by a 16-byte entry in the Partition Table which is located in the Master Boot Record."

It caught me out as I had windows XP and OSX86 installed already, so could only create a file system root and swap partition, no home or boot partitions for me.

How did the upgrade to the newer version go?

What's the rolley eyes for, oh sarky one? :P

I thought it might be valuable to give some feedback based on a newbie's experience with Linux over the last few months.

To answer the question:

The first attempt failed because the perennial problem where the screensaver kills Gnome interrupted it. So I turned off my screensaver and restarted it and it finished last night. It wouldn't have taken that long in reality - there were just a few prompts that appeared while I was at work or asleep

The live CD of Ubuntu/Knoppix or Mandriva will give you a good indication of whether or not the hardware will run. To be honest with the newer kernels, the vast majority of graphics chipsets/network cards/sound cards/mice/modems will be fine- where I have run into trouble is with the Power Management- your laptop may suddenly drain the battery for no apparent reason.

Wireless adaptors are another common problem, there are ways to adapt a standard windows driver to work but it's messy and some chips just don't work.

I've dual booted Mandriva and Ubuntu with windows XP in the past, but to be honest because of the niggling issues I just ended up booting windows every time anyway.

One thing to bear in mind when creating partitions - quote from wikipedia

"Technically, a hard disk should contain either as many as four primary partitions, or one to three primaries along with a single extended partition. Each of these partitions are described by a 16-byte entry in the Partition Table which is located in the Master Boot Record."

It caught me out as I had windows XP and OSX86 installed already, so could only create a file system root and swap partition, no home or boot partitions for me.

You can run /home, /swap and / inside of an extended partition.

you will need a /boot as this is where the kernels are stored and leaving it as part of / is very much less than ideal.

WRT / home this is not essential, but if you have it, you can toast the rest of the install or can remove it to try another linux flavour and as long as you don't reformat /home when installing you won't have lost your data. Always a nice feature I feel.

What's the rolley eyes for, oh sarky one? :P

Nothing just teasing

To answer the question:

The first attempt failed because the perennial problem where the screensaver kills Gnome interrupted it. So I turned off my screensaver and restarted it and it finished last night. It wouldn't have taken that long in reality - there were just a few prompts that appeared while I was at work or asleep

So would you say 7.10 is better than the edgy version you were running as if you feel so it would probably be best for newer people to plump with that.

So would you say 7.10 is better than the edgy version you were running as if you feel so it would probably be best for newer people to plump with that.

7.04, and with only about 10 minutes experience, hard to tell. I'll post again in a couple of days.

Wireless is a big thing with me, so I hope I don't hit too many issues on that one!

Getting quite excited about trying this (better not shout that too loud, I already read slashdot and TheRegister - I fear I am liking these computer things too much)

I remember the days when I never even had a PC at home - ahhh no email to check, forums to check, not many folk had mobile phones so not as many phone calls...bliss! :lol:

Wireless!!

I have Ubuntu 7.04 on one of my laptops so I can play with it and learn more, but I can not get the thing to connect via wireless and WPA with a PMCIA card! I have found some links saying how to do it but I can't figure it:confused:

I'll get there!

If you are having wireless problems the first thing I would ask is what card is it.

I ask this as there are plenty, esp broadcom ones, that have problems as the manufacturer won't give out specs.

There is a good driver for the intel 2200BG cards and a lot of prism based cards.

HostAP is a util/driver combo that supports a lot of cards too

If all else fails, you can use NDISWrapper to use the windows driver to make it work.

A quick google should get you more info on these

HTH

If ever you need help on a Linux site, don't bother saying 'How do i?' because you won't get a response. The correct way to ask is to say 'Linux is so rubbish, it can't even...' - you'll be inundated with replies on how to do what you need. The Linux mob are a very defensive bunch

or just say what point your stuck at.

I always got help that way

Cheer up, it was a joke (with an element of truth to it)

i know that ive spent many a night on linux boards with problems lol

only added my comment as i used to ignore posts that said it linux was crap because wireless etc wouldnt work

bah thats a load of carp mate!

I ran xp and mandrake partitioned. I even used Partition Magic and NEVER had a problem

it seems a pretty sensible approach if all you want to do is see what you think of linux...

Well I haven't got very far :lol:

I downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 (64 bit version as I have a dual core pentium laptop).

Booted from it and got th menu so selected install/run ubuntu.

Next thing I got was:

34.317144 Kernel Panic - not syncing VFS unable to mount root fs on unknown block (8,1)

I read that it may be I burnt it too fast so recopied it to another CD at the slowest rate it would run - still the same.

I new I would have to use my noodle a bit more with this but I have hardly got the packet opened!

Help please?

BTW it's an Acer Aspire 5633wlmi with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 (1.66 Ghz), 1GB ram running Windows XP MCE (not that the last bit matters if I am right!).

Cheers,

Steven.

Can you try the 32 bit CD please as I have a theory that there might be a driver problem to do with the SATA driver for certain SATA chipsets. I have seen similar myself on a few systems at work and all have the same chipset.

If you can get 7.10 yet, I would even give that a go.

ok, i downloaded the 32 bit version of 7.04 and it boots ok.....to a username/password prompt.

I have tried nothing, ubuntu, Ubuntu, oem, administrator but no luck.

Any ideas?