newbe linux user

linux & windows dual boot?

[tnt72]

What linux version is best for a newbe linux user to use for dual boot with win XP? I would perfer a version that I can download and install w/o rebooting(run install under win XP). I don't have cd drive or floppy on my laptop.

[scatcat]

Not sure you will get away without rebooting. I am sure most Distros will dual boot with XP.

Take a strole over to www.linuxquestions.org

They have all the answers for anything Linux.

Have fun.

[wheel]

Your lack of a floppy or CDROM is needlessly complicating your install. Figure out a way to get a CDrom onto that computer so you can install from CD. Or install to a different machine.

In fact, I suspect what you're asking is not possible. Even 'network' installs of linux require you to at least boot from a floppy.

[mtmtmt]

In regards to a good linux distro for a newbe. There are many good distros for newbes I started out with suse(http://www.opensuse.org) it has to be the most user friendly distro. It comes with YAST which makes it easy to install and use.

[brakthepoet]

This is fairly late, and tnt72 may already found a solution, but:

A distro that can be installed within Win XP and can be done without a CD or floppy drive has been rolling around in my head for the two weeks since it was posted. mtmtmt's post finally jarred my memory. Knoppix has an install that looks like it can be done without a CD or floppy drive, and it can be done within an NTFS partition. Check out the Knoppix Windows Partition PMI [knoppix.net] from the official Knoppix documentation.

That answers the second half of your question, but you're also asking for something friendly towards a newbe linux user. I'm not sure that this install will be, as it requires a bit of digging around boot.ini. You might be best served by finding a local Linux User Group and having them help you get set up. I've been using Linux for about 3 years, and I'm not sure that I'm brave enough to start messing with boot.ini or a lot of the other Windows config files.

mtmtmt's recommendation of Suse is a good one, and they have a new release coming out soon with some interesting new features. You might also consider Linspire or Freespire for out-of-the-box functionality. If you're willing to do a little more work on your own, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mepis are good choices. If you really want to dig into the guts of everything, aren't risk-averse, and are willing to configure a great deal more manually, you might try Slackware or Gentoo.

[jtara]

You might want to start out with a "Live CD". You can get Live CD versions of many distributions. This is a bootable CD that normally doesn't disturb your existing operating system. (Some do require that you create a swap partition on your hard drive, and some can optionally use a small partition on your hard drive to save settings between sessions.)

Oops, you don't have a CD reader...

[mtmtmt]

'brakthepoet' recommended Linspire, it is a good distro for newbes. But if you go with Linspire remember that you are always logged in as ROOT. That is not a good thing even system admins don't always log in as ROOT. You may want to checkout DistroWatch(http://www.distrowatch.com)

[brakthepoet]

But if you go with Linspire remember that you are always logged in as ROOT.

Kevin Carmony of Linspire dispelled this long-standing myth at the Boston LinuxWorld. An early alpha release of Linspire required running as root, but it was a testing release and not a general use release. Some releases after that allowed the creation of user accounts, but they weren't very forceful in encouraging the user to create a user account. The current release does a much better job in encouraging a user account.