the title says it all. I am wanting to mess with linux and it sounds like gentoo is the way to go. I just want to know if I can duel boot it and if there are sites that cover how to do this. Let me know.

To dual boot you'll need a separate blank partition (or another hard drive) to install Gentoo on. This is usually much easier if you partition your drive and install Windows first (I'm not sure about XP, but other versions of Windows must be installed first). After Windows is installed you should install Gentoo on the other partitions. To dual boot you'll want to use GRUB as your bootloader and install it in the MBR. Configure GRUB to dual boot and you're set (Google for it; there are plenty of pages on it).

Yes. You'll need a boot manager such as Grub or Lilo. Have a look at this wiki article on Dual booting with Gentoo.

Yes, you can, but it is recomended that you install Linux on a different drive, if you do so, the instalation procedure should allow you to select the drive you want to install it to and set the boot loader to let you boot on Windows or Linux.

If you decide to install it on the same drive in a different partition, things get complicated, but is still posible, just remember to back up your Windows partition before doing anything.

I found this, have fun.

If you're planning on installing it on your windows drive, you're gonna have to use partition magic or something to shrink the windows partition and make room for the linux partitions. If you're using FAT32 partitions (windows 95/98/ME partitions) you can still use the fips utility to split the partition.

I'm running Gentoo on the same drive as WinXP. I've had no problems so far. But sometimes it may happen that something breaks down and you have either edit grub, when error occurs or, willing to get to windows, to delete mbr using fdisk or something.

Quote: Original post by Kwizatz
If you decide to install it on the same drive in a different partition, things get complicated

How/why? I never had any problems.