I want to install linux on my computer. I already have XP Home as my active partition, and couple partitions for my music, and some other stuff.


Would it be wise to install backup all my data onto DVD and install linux on the first partition and reintall xp on second partition?

I'd back up everything just to be safe then let Linux resize your existing partitions to make room for itself. Your distribution should have a good explanation of the process in the install guide.

An even safer alternative is to add a new hard drive and install Linux on it, that route has nearly no risk of data loss and makes it easier to customize your Linux install. You don't need a big drive but with deals like a 100GB drive from Office Depot for $20.00 or similar deals from Best Buy there is no reason to buy a smaller drive.

With a whole drive to play with you can even install several distributions to see which you like best or keep a "play" version and a "real use" version. I do that, all new installs go onto the3 play version for a test drive and only make it onto my main sysem if they work well and cause no problems.

Using the Linux boot manager you can load whichever operating system from a menu at boot time which is very handy.

does all linux downloaded from the net provide that boot manager?

Everything I have looked at offered Grub or Lilo or both.

I like Grub as it is easy to configure from the menu system in SuSE.

I have downloaded Fedora Core 4 ISO. What are your thoughts on Fedora?

I'e played wih it and have it loaded but really don't like what they have done to the user interface very well. I used to run only RedHat systems until they dumped the desktop to the Fedora folks and moved on to just servers. I use KDE for almost everything and only switch to Gnome to play with Mono, it seems to run better over there.

I'm not a developer or beta tester, I just want a rock solid boot and run system with minimal hassle for my computers. I want to sit down and get other stuff done and spend as close to no time dinking with the system as possible. I moved everything I could over from Windows and rarely use my windows system for anything except running a mail filter that hasn't been fully ported over to Linux yet.

I looked at several of the downloadable distributions (I'd have to order the CDs anyway as my net connection doesn't allow much downloading) but decided to get a full distribution from SuSE on a single DVD (less hassle) with all the programs I needed on it.

Most of the distributions out there are good, they vary with what they include, how simple they are to install and use and how well they are supported. You need to try several to see what you like and what works for you but for a first time user go with a stable release with a lot of users and you'll have a better experience. Try beta releases and specialty distributions once you have a bit of experience under your belt.

Thanks for all your input that will help me alot.