Easiest Linux to install on WinXP machine?

[bazzman]

OK been thinking about installing Linux on my WinXP machine but I am wondering if any installs of Linux will partition the Hard Drive and can then be installed on the new partition. Also can they then be multi booted?

Cheers

[LordCrush]

Yes and yes ;)

Basic Linux installation questions - you should look at the readme and FAQs of your Linux Distribution

... and dont forget the backups :D

[bazzman]

Thx LCrush.

Would you recommend any particular version of Linux that is the easiest to do this?

[LordCrush]

Hmm i only know a bit about the german SUSE Linux and have not tried any other distributions now. SUSE has a nice Setup, but i never tried to do a install with multi-boot.

And... on the actual version 8.2 i was not able to complie a working SEQ ... seems to be a problem with the newer versions of autoconf in that version. :rolleyes:

I think most people here use Red Hat ...

[BrianW]

might look into Mandrake, its the version of Linux i've been using with Gnome as the interface
each person has their opinions and like different things, so you might just want to look around
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/

also i believe Slackware is one of the oldest distributions out there, and quite a few ppl i know use it, thers also quite a few IRC chanels for discusion of the different copies of linux, just have to look around for them
http://www.slackware.com/

and of course... cant forget
http://www.linux.com/

[suseuser7341]

Good to know LordCrush, will keep me from updating my SuSE 8.1 ;)

[Alfred]

If you want what some think is the simplest to install for both the OS and seq.... red hat

If you want the one that will require a lot of time (relative to your cpu speed) but will result in the fastest linux - gentoo linux.

My two cents.

[LordCrush]

Originally posted by suseuser7341
Good to know LordCrush, will keep me from updating my SuSE 8.1 ;)

Yep i have it now compiling, but it produces masses of warnings and then only segfaults :p

My "productive" SEQ runs on a patched SUSE 7.3 ;)

[Broseq]

Some quick tips for you from the school of hard knocks. I triple boot, Win98SE, WinXP and Mandrake 9.0.

Install 98 first, then XP and then Linux, it seems to work best.

** When Linux asks you where you want to put it's boot info, tell it to place it at the beginning of the Linux partition. If you chose the beginning of the drive you will have issues making the Win partitions bootable again.

BootMagic works great as a boot controller for this type of setup.

I used PartitionMagic running from the Win98 partition to pre-partition the XP and Linux space and then told both installs to use the space that was provided for it.

[fryfrog]

The boot managers found in Win2k/XP and in Linux should work just fine. Lilo and Grub both work very well. I would suggest the order mentioned above, Windows then Linux. Redhat and Mandrake should both easily tell you have windows already installed and probably make entries for lilo or grub, which ever boot loader you choose. If not, you may have to learn some lilo / grub to get it working. When I was dual booting, I always let lilo/grub put itself into the mbr, not forcing it to just stick itself on its own little partition... if that makes sense :)

[Zeppo]

Don't support that French-made Mandrake piece of crap.
Get a pure RedHat distro.
Or SuSe.
Or Slackware.
Or Gentoo.
Or anything else.....

[BrianW]

thanks for informing me zeppo :) didnt know it was french /beg-forgiveness

atm i'm running a copy of Slackware, and going to download a copy of RH9 that i'm growing fond(sp) of :)

[bazzman]

Thx for all the info folks. Guess I will try RH9 first then :D

I like the sound of easy.

I tried the Windows version and it seemed ok. Any major differences between the 2 btw?

[fryfrog]

thats totally retarded. all versions of linux are programmed by people all over the world. just because mandrake (one distribution) was put together by a french company means nothing. if you truely are avoiding the distro because it has some ties to france... i would assume that you also avoid ANY software that has a french author, co-author or any sort of contribution by a french person? because otherwise, what is the point. mandrake is just a collection of applications written by a myrid of people (some of them french i bet!).

reminds me of that stupid christian linux distro that refused to use any software written by gay people, renamed all "demonic" references and generally made a retarded version of linux.

[pagan]

If you are a complete linux noob like myself I found Redhat 8 to be very sweet. Unless you count the few months i had freeBSD and nearly went MAD; my extent of unix knowledge is just what I know from using shells I found Redhat 8 to be very easy.

Easy as WIN2k to install. KDE is an easy to use GUI. All of my ancient hardware was autodetected and installed. Just do a complete install of every package and all you will have to do is follow the instructions for installing SEQ to get it up and running.

just my 2 cents on this matter :)

[N00B to Linux]

Don't support that French-made Mandrake piece of crap.
Get a pure RedHat distro.
Or SuSe.
Or Slackware.
Or Gentoo.
Or anything else.....

lol, surprising such a person survived childhood...

...well, maybe not yet after all...

[who_me_use_seq]

Granted that the whole world is highly interconnected now. Granted that I tend to feel a greater affinity for technophiles in general than any national grouping.

It is still a valid point of view to maintain that the French are a bunch of cowardly self serving cocksuckers and that you don't want to have anything to do with them.

I, for my part, avoid all products of French origin. I had not thought to expand this to software.

The difference between this and that Christian Distro is that the Christians are just too stupid to code anything worthwhile, while the French have been known to produce useful code.

[RavenCT]

I had no problems getting SEQ to work on a RH9 out of the box (or fresh from the burn as it may be)...

I have a question though, which is the fastest or most efficient SEQ (running) distro?

I know Gentoo can be quite efficient, and I've toyed with it in the past, actually right now I have it "compiling" (emerge -u system) at the moment.

Basicall, this is a Pentium 133 (or 200, I forget) laptop (I got networking up and running without a problem), and I'm trying to figure out which version of Linux will give the most bang for the buck as far as the crappy hardware I'm trying to compile this on.

(YES! Flame away, I know this has been discussed in the past, and I'm being lazy asking the question again, but hey, this is good info and not a bad thing to BUMP! :) )

[Dedpoet]

Asking what distro is the fastest and most effiecient is going to be a lot like asking which is better, Ford or Chevy, Intel or AMD, ATI or Nvidia?

I can tell you first hand that Gentoo is very fast. Even when running KDE as a window manager, it blows away Red Hat 8 and 9 on the same system. Trim it down to something like Fluxbox and it's even faster. Really it's a matter of preference and time investment. I'm sure you could get something faster than Red Hat with less time invested than Gentoo (mostly compile time), but if you have the time, patience, and knowhow, I don't think you'll beat Gentoo for efficiency with Seq. There are distros out there that are leaner and maybe faster, but getting Seq running on them would be a time consuming and possibly impossibel task.

I have seen people on this forum running Red Hat, Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, BSD, and SuSE, at least. I personally run Gentoo on my own system, but have set up Red Hat for friends because it's easiest and I can do it in about an hour, whereas Gentoo takes a few days to get setup and optimized.

Just some rambling while I watch software install at work...

[fryfrog]

Gentoo I would have to put at the top of the list for speed, especially if you start with stage 1 and tune your compiler settings for your cpu. Next would be mandrake, since it is compiled for pentium (i586) or greater cpus. Redhat is of course i386 or greater. Gotta put debian in there somewhere, but truthfully I never liked it enough to get seq and X all working. Apt-get is > rpm, but I just didn't like debian.

Unfortuantly, boycotting mandrake because it is french just doesn't really make sense or harm them. Actually, you are probably HELPING them by not using it. You don't use any of their bandwidth by downloading their isos or reading their documentation. Added to that is that just like ALL other distros... their individual contribution is quite a bit smaller than what they get from opensource projects. Maybe if you are boycotting mandrake because it is french, you should just go ahead and stop using linux all together... because I would guess that at least ONE person one each of the key portions is french. All it would take is a french person working on the kernel and BOOM you can't use linux, sorry.

You are free to do what you want as its a free country, I of course will make fun of the French for being a big bunch of pussies... but I'll also make fun of you for calling things "Freedom Fries" or "Freedom Toast" or "Freedom Bread" :)

[Mr. Suspicious]

Originally posted by who_me_use_seq
It is still a valid point of view to maintain that the French are a bunch of cowardly self serving cocksuckers and that you don't want to have anything to do with them.

Had fun burning blacks on a cross this weekend?


Originally posted by fryfrog
You are free to do what you want as its a free country


No you are not, there's this set of rules we have called "the law". Because even Presidents don't follow them, doesn't mean everyone can break those rules whenever they want.


Originally posted by fryfrog
but I'll also make fun of you for calling things "Freedom Fries" or "Freedom Toast" or "Freedom Bread"

A thing that has bothering me with this for a long period now: Did Americans massivelly stopped kissing aswell?

[wfj5444]

I suggest using VMWare on top of WinXP. Then run Linux inside of VMware. I use it on P800 with 384 MB of Ram and its very acceptable for EQ and fabulous for Linux.

check it out www.vmware.com (http://www.vmware.com)


If you screw up your Linux install you can just delete your VM and try again.

[fryfrog]

OMG "Freedom Kisses" I don't think I could take that :)

You should take that free to do what you want in context instead of out. Our country DOES support freedom of speech and freedom of ideas, so he IS free to think and talk like that.

[wfj5444]

I find that those who are either scared or power hungry fear those with very different opinions. Many of those people are from America or Western Europe.

Socialist and Communists and people who live in those countries have a fear and utter hatred of America. They claim our country wants to take over the world. Funny that they try to pin that on us when America has shed more of our own blood and tears defending and liberating others.

As much as Europe hates to admit it, without America they would be speaking German and living under the Swaztica. The same people that loathe us for our freedom and our arrogance, would jump ship and come to this country if they had a chance in a heart beat.

Envious of those of us who live in a country that where we can love or hate without concern? We can say "I think the President should be shot, boiled in oil and nuked" and we won't get put in jail. We can espose pure unadulterated HATE not be censored or go to jail or we can do the same with LOVE.

If you don't live in America I am sorry for you, but difference is we welcome you with open arms and defend your right to hate us.

Can your country say the same?

[BlueAdept]

Originally posted by wfj5444
Funny that they try to pin that on us when America has shed more of our own blood and tears defending and liberating others.

Yea the US will liberate you whether you want to be or not. The US has its nose in too much of the worlds politics.


As much as Europe hates to admit it, without America they would be speaking German and living under the Swaztica. The same people that loathe us for our freedom and our arrogance, would jump ship and come to this country if they had a chance in a heart beat.

Actually Germany would have fallen under its own weight. Hitler had extended his reach too far too quick. He didnt have the resources to continue the fight. If the US hadnt helped, Germany would have fallen to Russia. It probably would have taken longer but experts still say the Nazi Germany would not have survived.


We can say "I think the President should be shot, boiled in oil and nuked" and we won't get put in jail.

Actually if you live in America, you cant say that. It is ILLEGAL to make threats against the President and you could be tossed in jail for a long time.


If you don't live in America I am sorry for you, but difference is we welcome you with open arms and defend your right to hate us.

Actually we dont welcome most outsiders to the US. Do you know how many mexicans, haitians, and other nationalities get escorted back to their country because they tried to come to America to start a new life? Ill give you a hint, it is a large number.

[Cryonic]

and how many of those escorted out entered this country legally in the first place? I'll give you a hint, not many.

Hmm, Europe under Hitler or Stalin. I don't think either would have been a good option. Of course, without the US in the war, Germany would not have had two fronts to expend resources on, just one. Britain was almost out of the fight which is why we were designing long range bombers since we couldn't guarantee that they would still be in the war.

[BlueAdept]

Originally posted by Cryonic
and how many of those escorted out entered this country legally in the first place? I'll give you a hint, not many.

True, but it is next to impossible for any of the nationalities that I named to get into the country legally.



Hmm, Europe under Hitler or Stalin. I don't think either would have been a good option. Of course, without the US in the war, Germany would not have had two fronts to expend resources on, just one. Britain was almost out of the fight which is why we were designing long range bombers since we couldn't guarantee that they would still be in the war.

The worst thing that Hitler could have done was to break the truce between Russia and Germany, which he did. Hitler thought Russia would fall easily, the Nazi army was not prepared to fight in the cold and was not prepared for the strengh of Russian army. I as well as many other experts believe that Russia had more than enough resources to overthrow Nazi Germany. If you thought our losses were great, Russia lost 2x as many people fighting Germany. The US/Alliance had to rush to get to Berlin because Russia was going to get to it before us. We did not want Russia to get the information on rockets/jet engines/nuclear information. We were only partly successful on that.

I agree that if the US had not gotten in the war, that things would be a lot different. Russia would have been the strongest country. They would have developed the bomb first and would probably have had part if not all of Europe. I dont know how good a choice it would have been either and think the US did the right thing against Hitler.

This isnt a political arena so I wont further this thread.

[Zeppo]

Hey, how did we get soooo off the most important topic here?
Germany and Russia?
Who cares?
Let's get back to what we should be doing.
Bashing those yellow-bellied, frog eating, bastard Frenchies!!!!

[Zeppo]

I mean, really!
How can we take a country that idollizes Jerry Lewis seriously?
Come on!

[who_me_use_seq]

Not to mention underarm and leg hair on women......ewwwwwwww.

Have you ever seen a French woman with full leg hair wearing nylons over it? Possibly the most disturbing thing I have ever seen on a public street.

Oh and Mr. Suspicious, Finding the French to be comicaly cowardly and annoyingly oderous does not make me a Klan member. If it did then pretty much all Englishmen would be out buying new robes and masks.

[Zeppo]

Oh yeah.
The Hair.
I forgot about the hairy arm and leg thing.
That's just....
disturbing.
And wrong.
So very wrong.

[RavenCT]

Hey, how about someone starting a thread on the most difficult, challenging, and/or complex Linux version to setup SEQ on? :p

All I know right now is that I've had "emerge gnome" compiling on this AMD K6 233 (w/128 MB of RAM, Gentoo 1.4) for almost three days now!

WHEW! That hard drive is getting a workout! :D

[Dedpoet]

/em sneaks into Raven's house and presses ctrl-c.

[RavenCT]

Gah! Well, I thought you would throw the breaker and corrupt the file system instead :)

Day four and STILL compiling :)

Here's the line it's currently working on, anyone have any idea how far through an emerge of gnome this might be? (Don't flame me for typos, I'm looking at one screen and typing it on the other machine :o )

g++ -c -pipe -fno-exceptios -fPIC -Wall -W -O2 -D_REENTRANT -DQT_TABLET_SUPPORT -DQT_NO_DEBUG -DQT_THREAD_SUPPORT -DQT_SHARED -I/usr/rmp/portage/qt-3.1.2-r4/work/qt-x11-free-3.1.2/mkspecs/linux-g++ -I. -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I../interfaces -I../../../include -I/usr/X11R6/include -I.moc/release-shared-mt/ -o .obj/release-shared-mt/cindent.o cindent.cpp

Whew! I'm glad I don't normally have to type in those compiler instructions!

[Cheshire_Dragon]

I think it would be pretty hard to compile SEQ on a Slackware system. The first Linux version I decided to play with was Slackware. Bad choice? I thought so. I haven't seen it since version 7 back in 98 I think it was. Extremely difficult. It was so hard in fact that I was detered from Linux until sometime last year about this time when I rediscovered SEQ...So I did some research and asked around and desided that RedHat was the choice for me. So over all, Slackware is my vote for hardest distro to install SEQ on(even though I have never installed SEQ on it)

[RavenCT]

ARRRGHHH!! After, what, five days of compiling? The "emerge gnome" FAILED! Doh! Emerged it again and it failed again!

Well, trying "emerge kde" now, don't ask about the error message, I don't remember what it was and I'm a little too drunk to care at the moment :)

Hopefully it won't take 5 days to error out now :)

If I try to remember, it was talking something about the Audio/Visual something or other, oh well...

Nothing like Trial by fire huh?

Oh, and what the hell has been going on with trying to get to Sourceforge over the last several days?

[Dedpoet]

Bummer, Raven. You know...I have an Athlon 1100 sitting in a drawer that I feel like sending you out of pity. I think you can probably get a working Duron or low-end Athlon on a board with 128MB for probably $125 US. You should look into that :-)