It's out there, and it's free -- or at least close to it -- but you just haven't had the nerve to take the plunge and try Linux. We have good news. It's not necessary to make a complete commitment to the open-source operating system. You can have your Windows and your Linux, too, by setting up a dual-boot system. We'll step you through the process of installing Linux alongside Windows XP so that you can boot either OS.
Sometimes referred to as GNU/Linux, today's incarnation of the OS constitutes a complete Unix-like environment made up of a Linux kernel and OS utilities developed by the GNU Project. Most Linux versions also include the XFree86 X Window System graphical user interface and at least one Windows-based desktop environment, typically KDE or GNOME, which should make Windows and Mac users feel at home. Although these components are essentially free, many companies and organisations add installation routines and a wealth of additional software to create their own Linux distributions. Some examples include Debian GNU/Linux, Mandrakelinux, Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core, and SuSE Linux.
Linux is easy to embrace once it's up and running, and many distributions come with enough software to satisfy the great majority of needs. But installing and configuring Linux can present some challenges, particularly when the OS doesn't recognize certain hardware components. If the idea of having to sift through documentation and user-group postings to figure out how to install a driver or solve some other problem scares you, you're better off leaving Linux to the more adventurous. For our project, we added dual-boot capability to two Windows XP test systems by installing Mandrakelinux 10.0 Discovery (44.9 euros). The steps are similar for other Linux distributions, but installation routines differ.
Step 1: Document hardware components
To prepare for the following steps, take a few minutes to document the key components of your system -- at least your modem, network adapter, printer plus sound and graphics cards. To find this information, simply open the Windows Device Manager and click the plus sign next to a given category to display the installed hardware of that type.
Step 2: Choose a Linux distribution
If you're new to Unix-like OSs, pick a distribution that focuses on easy installation, such as Mandrakelinux or SuSE Linux. For informative reviews of various distributions, check out DistroWatch. Once you've selected one, go to the Web site for that distribution and check the list of supported hardware against your component list. If you can't find a distribution that supports your hardware, you're better off not installing Linux, unless you're ready to spend serious time learning more about it.
If you don't want to pay a penny for your Linux, insist on a distribution that's available for free download in ISO images. This makes it easy to burn CDs for installation, but you'll need patience. Even with broadband, expect to spend at least a couple of hours downloading each disc. Alternatively, you can pay an outfit such as CheapISO.com, OSDepot.com, or LinuxWerks to send you discs of a specific build for only a few pounds per disc.
If you've steeled yourself for the lengthy download, you can often find ISO images on the vendor's Web site and on numerous mirror sites. LinuxISO.org does a good job of collecting in one place links to ISO images for major distributions.
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You may see MD5 files or values posted with the ISO images. These let you verify the accuracy of your downloaded image file using a checksum utility.
Don't go a step further without making a complete backup of your hard drive so that you can restore the drive if necessary. This is more than a sensible precautionary measure -- it's a crucial necessity. It's also a good idea to defragment the hard drive that will hold your Linux installation.
Reboot and enter your PC's BIOS setup utility. Once it appears, ensure your system is set to boot from a CD before your primary hard drive. This setting allows you to boot from your Linux installation discs or, in the event of problems, from your Windows XP installation disc.
Experienced Linux users often create four partitions for Linux installations, but for newcomers, two will suffice: a root partition and a swap partition.
Creating these partitions is simple if you'll be installing Linux on a second hard drive in your system. If that's the case, skip to the next step. For our example, we installed Linux onto a Windows boot drive by creating two new partitions. The least-troublesome way to achieve this is to use Norton PartitionMagic 8.0 (£49.98). This time-tested utility lets you resize your current Windows partition (including NTFS volumes) without damaging your Windows installation or data. Try to carve out at least 4GB of space for your Linux root partition. Define your swap partition to roughly double the capacity of your system memory, to a maximum of about 512MB.
When creating partitions for a dual-boot configuration, make sure the Linux root partition immediately follows your Windows partition. Choose Ext3 as the file system for your root partition and Linux Swap as the type for the swap partition.
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If you'd rather save the £50 for something else, let Linux partition your hard drive. See the next step.
Talkback
Your article is interesting, although some of the thinking is back to front. I have Windows XP on some of my machines and SuSE 9.1 on others.
I use both platforms in my everyday work as a consultant. I am not a Windows evangelist and I am not a Linux evangelist. They both have their strong and weak points. I use whichever will do a certain job better and more efficiently and also taking into account customer wishes. But when I have to build a system, I am much happier when I have to install Linux - unless I am being paid by the hour for the install.
I have never had any problems installing SuSE on any of my machines, ranging from a 1Ghz notebook up to a brand new AMD64. On the other hand, Windows has always been a complete nightmare to install.
I've never had to specify an alternate driver or had a device wrongly identified by SuSE, usually it recognises my video card and monitor and boots straight into the a usable resolution (either 1024x768 or 1280x1024 depending on setup) for the initial configuration. Likewise, I've never had problems with sound or network cards.
On the other hand, when I installed Windows XP on my machines, the sound card is never recognised, I always have to download a third party driver, video and networking is usually the same as well.
I bought a new AMD64 machine a couple of weeks ago. It uses an Asus A8V Deluxe motherboard (on board 7.1 surround sound, Gigabit ethernet, firewire, USB, Promise and VIA SATA RAID controllers), PNY FX5900 video card and a pair of Samsung SATA drives in swappable trays. I plugged in the SuSE DVD and the setup ran straight through, the system was fully patched and online in around 45 minutes. Network, sound, video, well everything, were identified and the correct (or usable) drivers were automatically installed during the initial set-up (and it is a 64-bit OS).
The Windows XP install was a different matter. For a start Windows refused to believe that the machine had any hard disks installed. In the end I had to go back to the shop and purchase a floppy drive and download the Promise SATA drivers from the manufacturers website and copy them onto a floppy and tell Windows to load the special driver at the beginning of the set-up. But unfortunately I had been too clever, I had bought a USB floppy (none of my other machines have floppy drives these days, so the thought of having a drive I could use on any machine appealed). Windows found the drive the first time it looked, but then promptly reset the USB bus and couldn't find the drivers when it looked again and refused to install! Another trip to the shop to buy an internal floppy drive, and the basic installation could continue.
Windows booted up into 800x600 mode, there wasn't even a choice to set the correct resolution (1280x1024) , just 640x480 or 800x600! Oh, well, a quick online update should fix that... Nope, the network adapter wasn't recognised, so, after much CD swapping (5 CD's), I finally had the network drivers and video drivers installed. Using a DSL link, it took another 5 hours to download and install the patches for Windows, IE and Office (another 7 CD's to install first as well).
Witthout 3rd party drivers, SuSE was up and running and installed with Open Office, MySQL, Apache and an assortment of other packages (graphics editor, media player, games, network servers, anti-virus software to check for Windows viruses etc.) in 45 minutes, including all available updates. And that included one soft-reboot.
Windows on its own, couldn't even install itself. Given a little help on showing it how to use a hard disk, it managed to install a system that would not run at the optimal resolution, had no sound and no networking and no applications installed. A further 5 hours and there was a workable system with Office XP installed and Norton Anti-Virus. And that included somewhere between 15 and 20 reboots.