Re: completely new to home Linux

k wallace wrote:

Hi all,
I have experience with Unix and Linux (red hat) at work, but would like
to install a dual-boot option on my new home system. I have a disk copy
of Ubuntu, i'm just now formatting my new hard drive.

You already have windows on another (first) drive?

I don't know *squat* about this; completely learning as I go along.

What I want-
a system capable of doing everything I do at home with XP Pro, yet with
the freedom and flexibility of Linux. I'm not much of a MS fan, to tell
the truth.

Linux is not windows. You will find toys for almost everything, but you
probably have to fit them together by yourself.

I need all the usual; web access through my wireless G and/or

Depends upon the wireless chipset. Some are supported natively, some need
ndiswrapper to run the windows drivers.

ethernet card/cablemodem, SSH tunnel to work and back, Star Office or

ssh and sshd are fine, Openoffice does a excellent job too. You can set it
to save in microsoft formats by default, but it can as well save as pdf.

openoffice complete utility. I regularly run fairly heavy
numbercrunching programs and 3D modeling programs, my new system's
running an AMD 64, 250 GB Seagate HD, within a few months will be
running raid 0 on another 250 GB hd.

These programs may need emulation (wine, qemu, vmplayer, crossover, win4lin,
vmware) or you have to glue together a new toolchain.

questions:
how much partition space do I allocate to each OS?

Depends. XP wants 8 GB, linux about the same, for operating system
partition.
It is a good idea to have a 2nd "data" partition for XP as well (move "My
documents" there).
Linux should run fine with a "root" partition, swap (at least the size of
ram) and a /home (for the same reasons as XP, to survive reinstalls since
you want to try different distributions).

How to I prompt the system to invite me to select which OS i want to
use? I'm not the only user on the home box, but i am the only one who'll
be using Linux.

Each mainstream distribution has grub or lilo and will add pre-existing
windows partitions as well.

For the record, i'm more hardware savvy than software savvy, which is
probably obvious from my questions; as a mechanical engineer, I
generally just let software 'do its thing' and tweak my hardware, but I
am interested in this move to Linux.

You will have to learn how to tweak some software configurations to get the
best out of linux.
Google will be your friend, especially the groups archive.

--
vista policy violation: Microsoft optical mouse detected penguin patterns
on mousepad. Partition scan in progress to remove offending
incompatible products. Reactivate MS software.
Linux 2.6.14-mm1 [LinuxCounter#295241,ICQ#4918962]
.

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