Gladiator:

To answer your question, yes it''s possible but you will need a minimum of 500Mb free. You can download winLinux 2000. Your linux will run in a windows environment but hey, if you can''t spare to make a partition, it''s better than not having it. Anyhow, VMWare is good but you need at least 128Mb of ram in order for it to run correctly... Anyhow, I have Win Linux 2000 installed on my system an it runs fine.

C-y''a




Cyberdrek
Headhunter Soft
DLC Multimedia

That''s what I thought. I knew it was better to have 2 partitions for each system so file don''t get mixed up and stuff, but I just had to ask that anyways. My next question is: Is there a way to partition a hard drive without destroying any of the information on the drive or is it not possible?

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That's just my 200 bucks' worth!

..-=gLaDiAtOr=-..

I believe it''s possible. Quoting myself from above:

"defrag your HD and put all data in the beginning of the partition, then use some tool like Partition Magic the resize the partition and create a new one for linux"

How would I put all the data at the beginning of the partition?! Is there a tool to do that?

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That's just my 200 bucks' worth!

..-=gLaDiAtOr=-..

Defrag your HD so that your data is moved to the front *grins*

Personally, I don''t like the idea of installing linux on a fat partition. FAT sucks. Besides, ext2 is more secure and designed to avoid fragmentation(it still exists, but it''s not an issue even in a very overused filesystem with not much disk space available).

If you want to be serious about linux programming, I''d suggest learning how to properly admin a linux machine.

It''s pretty simple Gladiator. You can start the defrag program from the DOS prompt (simply open up a DOS prompt and type in defrag). It should also be in your start-menu (if you haven''t deleted it that is).

Okay, could someone who knows what he is doing guide me through all the steps needed for downloading to installing linux? (or unix, which is better? I know unix is more difficult to use but which one is more stable and better to use as a programmer?). Well, whoever thinks he could do that as a favor, please e-mail me at welcomehowcome@hotmail.com. thanks!

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That's just my 200 bucks' worth!

..-=gLaDiAtOr=-..

Well Gladiator, I won''t e-mail you directly at this time because I think some of the stuff I''m gonna write can help not only you but other people as well.

You -CAN- download linux, if you have a fast connection and a lot of pacience. Otherwise I would suggest buying a CD with some distribution (come on... in my country there are even magazines containing some sort of linux distribution, and they cost about R$ 10,00 - about $ 6,00). I''m currently using Redhat, but I want to give Corel''s a try(and SuSe, if I can get my hands on it).

Linux IS a unix, as is Solaris, FreeBSD, Aix etc. The main advantages of Linux for PC''s in my opinion lies in it''s hardware support, and because it''s free. Linux is as easy/difficult (depends on your knowledge and point of view) as other unix flavours. And it''s damn stable. DAMN.

Let''s sumarize the steps to get linux up and running in you machine:

1- Decide which distribution to use
2- Get your hands on it (download/buy the media)
3- This one needs some explanation. I didn''t make my linux filesystem use the damn old fashioned and inneficient FAT. So do not make me any comments about installing linux on a FAT partition... I won''t hear you lalala...

Ok... get some space to put you ext2 partition. There are some ways to do this.
First, if you have some unpartitioned space, great, use it(butwhy the heck have you been wasting space all this time?).
If not, then you should make some. The legend say you cannot change the partition table without reformatting. It''s true. So if you have nothing to lose, whack your current partitions and create them again, this time leave some space to put you new ext2 partition.
But if you''re like most people, you will not want to lose your partition. So you can use some programs to do the "magic" of resizing you current partition to make room for the new one. This is where the defrag beast (for god sake, if you have NU, use SpeedDisk) comes to play. You will use it to put the data to the front of the partition, so there''s free space at the end of the partition. Tell the magic program (fips, partition resizer or partition magic) to resize the partition. Tell the size you want. But fist, backup!!!! I cannot stress how important is to backyp you data. I''ve done it myself without backups, but that''s because I''m cool and can fix the problems myself

4- Ok. Now that you have the free space, run the install. Everything from now on will be different from distro to distro At some point it will ask to create the partition, install Lilo and etc. If you are installing any distro besides Redhat, good luck, I have no experience with them (well, there''s debian, but it was a long time ago).

Well... I hope you can figure out for yourself, if not send me a mail and I''ll try to help.

As complicated it may seem, rest assured I found it to be easier than to install windows (something I''ve done hundreds of times with many different computers).



Gaiomard Dragon
-===(UDIC)===-

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/

is a great resource for linix stuff including a message board for programming

"People spend too much time thinking about the past, whatever else it is, its gone"-Mel Gibson, Man Without A Face

One little factual error i''d like to clear up:

Linux is Not UNIX. Kinda like GNU''s Not UNIX. Linux is a UNIX clone. It''s a very good clone, however. So good, in fact, that it plays about as well with UNIXen as the different UNIXen play with each other. It is not fully POSIX compliant (alas and alak), but it''s pretty damn close, which makes porting very easy.

The reason it is not a UNIX, like Solaris, HPUX, AIX, or OpenBSD, is that all the others were actually decended from the original source code of UNIX written by AT&T. They all share this original code, which is what makes them UNIX. Linux, however, was a workalike, like Minix, only done right.

Anyway, just wanted to set that straight.

-benc