Re: completely new to home Linux

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:24:05 -0800, 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.

Not really necessary to format first - just install, partition as you go.


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.

I need all the usual; web access through my wireless G and/or
ethernet card/cablemodem, SSH tunnel to work and back, Star Office or
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.

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

I have usually allotted about 10gb per distro, and haven't had serious
problems; but you may as well use all the disk.

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.

Install a Linux loader - either lilo (linux loader) or grub (grand unified
bootloader) - my opinion is that grub is easier to deal with. Assuming the
other OS involved is MS (not really stated, but that inference can be
drawn), it's best to install MS first. If you then install Ubuntu and tell
it to install grub to the MBR it will search out the other OSs installed
and set up a boot menu for all the ones found. It will default to Ubuntu,
but that can be changed. You will then be presented with a menu at boot
time, and if no action is taken, then the default system will be loaded
after some (modifiable) time delay. You may want to install Ubuntu in
several partitions. It is perfectly acceptable to install in one partition
(with an additional 1gb or so swap partition). You may want to have / on
one partition and /home on another; or / /boot /home. I'd be tempted to
suggest you start with the simplest configuration first. You can always
reinstall later.


any other advice etc. is totally welcome.

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.

thanks
k wallace

.

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