two OS on the same pc ??

Tom DWC

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Most certainly is - you can install and run two operating systems, one at a time (known as dual booting).

You can also run more than one at once by using a virtual machine.

If you need any more info on how to go about doing this then let us know.
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
I dual boot (not Windows). I have Ubuntu 10.04 and 11.04 testing, but for safety, I have them on two separate drives. That way if the testing version breaks seriously it can't cause a problem with the stable version. If you are wanting Windows, you should install this first. Windows will break Linux if you do it the other way around. Ubuntu installation will find Windows and offer to set up a dual boot system for you.
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Windows first. Windows does not like dual boot and will break your Ubuntu install. Ubuntu will talk you through making it dual boot. Update Windows before installing Ubuntu.
 
DSN

DSN

Enthusiast
personally id Ubuntu 1st, and deal with the dual boot through grub.

Never been an issue for me.
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
DSN said:
personally id Ubuntu 1st, and deal with the dual boot through grub.

Never been an issue for me.
Click to expand...

My assumption is we're talking to a Windows user. Unless Windows has suddenly become Linux-friendly since XP, you'd have to provide a formatted NTFS partition ready for Windows. If you don't, Windows will pretend not to see the EXT4 and swap partitions and will want to re-partition and format the entire drive to NTFS. For a Windows user, it's going to be a bit daunting to learn about partitioning and make all the right decisions. Even if he gets it right, Windows is still going to want to pretend that there are no partitions other than the NTFS one, and will offer (as a default) to re-partition the drive .... if he correctly refuses Windows recommendation, Windows will overwrite the boot sector, and on re-boot grub will be broken. Only option then is to install grub using the live cd and run update-grub from the terminal. Long before this, the Windows user will have given up! (What's a terminal? What is a command-line? Not to mention sda, sdb etc.) They always told me Linux was way too geeky.

Do it the other way round, and use the Ubuntu defaults - Ubuntu will see that Windows is installed and offer to make a dual boot system. It will have to re-size the EXT4 partition, and I know that's a pain and takes forever, but at least Ubuntu gets it right if you accept the defaults. You don't have to know anything about partitioning or filesystem types or any commands etc. It just works!

Hartley: Are you geeky enough to go for the tough option: if so get DSN to talk you through it all the way
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Hey, I'm proud of myself. I managed to get right through that without for once saying "Why on earth would anyone in their right mind want to have Windows these days?":p
 
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hartley

Bronze Level Poster
I will go for it once i recieve my new pc. the one am using now is more than 7 yrs old. the first and last time i tried to install linux on my pc was about 10-12 yrs ago and it crashed . but i did not know anything in computing in those days. Am a bit suprised linux has not taken off yet . Its popular among computer geek only . marketing ?? or what !!
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
To be honest, it's only recently that I have been able to install Ubuntu for Windows users who are non-technical, and have them using it quickly and easily. It is also fairly recent that most new peripherals are supported by Ubuntu, and there are applications to do almost everything that Windows can offer. After release of 11.04 Natty Narwhal next April, we have GREAT expectations. Watch this space!
 
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hartley

Bronze Level Poster
your opinion abt this

Linux openSuSE 11.2 PC
£51.90

Description
OpenSUSE 11.2: Linux* convenient, simple, secure and complete

openSUSE 11.2 has everything you need for a change to Linux. openSUSE® 11.2, have fun at work using a complete software solution. Internet, e-mail, blog or chat with friends, office suite, retouching fotos, - and Microsoft compatible.

* 90 free phone and email support· free updates and maintenance for 18 month
* compatible with Microsoft* products, openoffice.org, Firefox et.al.
* Internet: e-mail, chat, blog, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and more
* hundreds of games, applications and useful software

openSUSE 11.2 convenient and simple for daily work

Productivity Software
* Compatible with Microsoft Office Suite and OpenOffice.org
* Task management with Tasque and KOrganizer
* Integrated e-mail, calendaring, and address book with EvolutionTM and Kontact

Internet and E-mail
* Firefox 3.5.3 Web browser
* Kontact and Evolution e-mail clients
* Support for AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo!, Google Talk, Jabber and other instant messaging protocols with Pidgin and Kopete
* BitTorrent filesharing with Ktorrent and Monsoon
* Voice over IP (VoIP) Linphone, and Twinkle. Skye available for openSUSE

Multimedia
* Photo editing and management with digiKam and The GIMP
* Image viewing with Gwenview and digiKam
* MP3 support with BansheeTM and Amarok
* Audio editing with Audacity

Desktop Environments
* KDE 4.3
* GNOME 2.28
* Xfce and many more!

Security
* Finger-print recognition
* Immune to Windows viruses, malware, and trojans
* SUSE® Firewall: a built-in, easy-to-use firewall
* Span filtering with SpamAssassin
* Security software with AppArmor®
* Anti-phishing features in Firefox 3.5.3

Development Tools
* Eclipse
* Kdevelop and MonoDevelop
* GNU Compiler Collection (GCC)
* MySQL and PostgreSQL databases
* Virtualization
* Xen
* VirtualBox
* KVM
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Haven't uses Suse myself, but all the reports I've heard about it are good. With Linux, you really need to try more than one distro and see what suits you personally. My experience was with the original commandline Gnu Linux, then Mandrake which was a gui system but dreadful to install at that time. And I tried something else - Debian I think. Again at that time difficult to install. When I moved to Ubuntu it really was a breath of fresh air so there I'll stay for now. You don't need to pay for OpenSuse - get the free download from http://software.opensuse.org/113/en and give it a whirl. I'm not saying you shouldn't pay for a distro - it comes with support and that's what you are actually paying for. If you think it's better than Ubuntu please feed back to us and say why. You might also try Mint and give an opinion; people are making all the right noises about this newish derivative. CD's and DVD's are cheap enough - you could afford to download and try try all the distros if you have the time! Oh, and bear in mind that most distros have variants to suit different uses and interests ....
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
I've got a caveat that has recently come up on the Ubuntu forums. Windows 7 overwrites part of the boot sector every time you boot into it. This breaks grub2 which is the core of a dual boot bootloader. It will be fixed, but for now, Windows 7 effectively destroys dual boot ability. The same will apply to all breeds of Linux, not just Ubuntu.
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
It means that currently you can't successfully dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux of any breed. But of course, Microsoft specifically advise against dual booting. Suggested workarounds: Wubi (Windows Ubuntu installer). Running Windows and Linux on separate hard-drives (should work if the boot drive is the Linux drive). Using a boot disk to select the OS. Cumbersome, but possible. Other workarounds would be upgrading Windows to a lesser version than 7 (Win 2000 was the last really good version IMO), installing Windows over Linux using VirtualBox http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox is supposed to be another approach. Finally, work without Windoes (my choice). I do run one Windows app under the Wine emulator, but the rest of my requirements are met very well with native Linux apps.
 
vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
It was my intention barrydrake to install windows xp & ubuntu on second hard drive with windows7 on first hard drive,I take it by what i've read here,this wont be possible?
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
XP and Ubuntu can co-exist on one drive with no problem. I've never worked with Windows 7 at all, but I think if you install Windows XP FIRST on the second drive followed by Ubuntu and then set the second hard drive up as the boot drive, it should work. The Ubuntu install will probably have found XP and Windows 7 and set up triple boot for you. If not, boot into Ubuntu, and do sudo update-grub This should show you a printout as if finds each of the OS's. If this does not happen, you will need to boot Ubuntu, and do sudo grub-install hd[x] - the x being whichever drive Ubuntu and XP are residing on. If you don't get the right drive you will break Windows. It will likely be either hda or hdb .... but not necessarily ... Use gparted to find out. Just make certain you can restore your Windows 7 if you do break it. You could, of course take out the Win 7 drive and get the XP and Ubuntu running on the second drive before re-connecting the Win 7 drive. That way, you'd need to switch the boot order in the bios to use the other drive.
 
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