Dual and boot linux

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » June 25, 2005, 8:05 pm

So, if you had to recommend a linux distro to someone as a dual boot that would show off linux at it's very best and include enough extras to make someone basically functional i.e. Open Office, a decent set of Samba type connectivity tools for a winnetwork, audio and video players, CD burning software all that jazz. I am thinking a hard drive install of Knoppix or Symphony right now.

Also since the last time I hassled with a dual boot app was the Boot app that came with Partition Magic 2.0 anyone have one they can recommend?

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 25, 2005, 8:15 pm

For demonstration purposes, of what sounds like a desktop system, what about Ubuntu? The "live" version boots and runs from CD w/o installing anything to the HD.

Never played w/ Knoppix or Symphony, what's the reason you're thinking about those?

I'd tend to go w/ SUSE or Fedora or something else mainstream unless you're looking for an easy test drive.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 25, 2005, 8:21 pm

Oh, and every linux distro I'm aware of comes w/ a boot strapper that will still allow you to boot your windows partition as well as the new linux one; that said, you have to be careful to check google for problems that occasionally crop up with some distros.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » June 25, 2005, 8:27 pm

I recommend Fedora Core 4...

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » June 25, 2005, 8:37 pm

Fash wrote:I recommend Fedora Core 4...

Yep, if you just want something to install use as an office PC it's pretty good.

If you've got a DVD drive grab the DVD image, set the options, walk away for 15 minutes and it's done.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » June 25, 2005, 9:14 pm

I was thinking Knoppix because my god it has everything, like 40 diff network packages, 4 browsers, 5 media players, 80-100 games Open Office, a live CD etc. Really for completeness it is great, BUT I do not need that much on the build I make for him, and I want to make it click and play as much as possible. Plus when it is all said and done, I do not want to support it heh.

I will check out Fedora and SuSE however. Right now I am playing with PCLinuxOS heh, third distro today.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » June 26, 2005, 4:48 am

I'm dual booting Windows XP Pro and FC3 and I like FC3. Fedora Core is getting to be very slick and integrated and almost approaching the user friendliness of Windows. I have been dabbling with the Red Hat variant of Linux since version 4 or so and have used all the FC releases. FC is really nice to use and administer.

I never had a problem wih the boot loader in FC, especially when compared to the old buggy LILO loader. I did have a small problem with drive geometry and the anaconda package on the stock FC3 disks, but that was easy enough to resolve using a downloadable update diskette.

I just downloaded the ISOs for FC4 and will load them on a laptop to see how that compares.

Llaffer · Post by **Llaffer** » June 26, 2005, 10:28 am

One thing that I've heard people having problems with FC4 is if you plan on downloading and compiling source code.

It has gcc4 installed (which is still in beta, gentoo doesn't have any gcc4 package flagged as being available on any platform yet).

gcc4 is much more strict on error checking and will fail where gcc3 will just let it pass as a warning, which needs code changes to make it gcc4 happy.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 27, 2005, 12:09 am

Tenuvil wrote: I never had a problem wih the boot loader in FC, especially when compared to the old buggy LILO loader.

Grub in FC2 was notoriously dodgy w/ dual boot systems:

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-t ... 02114.html

I never had much in the way of issue w/ LILO either, it was easier for 'normal' systems, and harder for strange setups that required chain loaders. I think either of them would have been bitten by the 2.6 kernel changes.

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » June 27, 2005, 1:19 am

Odd, I never had a problem dual booting any Fedora Core release (including FC2) and XP Pro using grub. Maybe because I had linux installed on another physical drive?

lilo worked great on dual boot setups with any pre-NT kernel Microsoft OS. I remember having to use the dreaded boot diskette when I migrated to Windows 2000. grub may have been buggy at first but it works like a charm now.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 27, 2005, 4:56 am

Tenuvil wrote:Odd, I never had a problem dual booting any Fedora Core release (including FC2) and XP Pro using grub. Maybe because I had linux installed on another physical drive?

That would be it. Was more a problem if you were booting from the same drive (it effectively changed the CHS parameters of the drive. or otherwise messed up the partition table)

Tenuvil · Post by **Tenuvil** » June 27, 2005, 5:12 am

Llaffer wrote:One thing that I've heard people having problems with FC4 is if you plan on downloading and compiling source code.

It has gcc4 installed (which is still in beta, gentoo doesn't have any gcc4 package flagged as being available on any platform yet).

gcc4 is much more strict on error checking and will fail where gcc3 will just let it pass as a warning, which needs code changes to make it gcc4 happy.

Thanks for the tip on this...I have been reading posts on other forums where people are reporting problems with FC4 when make'ing application packages designed to be compiled with gcc3. Think I'm gonna stay with FC3 for the time being.

Kinda surprised the Fedora people would do a full blown release with a compiler that's still in beta testing.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 27, 2005, 5:32 am

SOP really.. Fedora is a beta product for Redhat EL

I thought it was much stranger when they put the (beta) gcc 2.96 into Redhat 7. It wasn't even capable of compiling the kernel.

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » June 27, 2005, 11:47 pm

I ended up running with FC4, and was happy enough with it on my buddies standalone. So happy that I added it to mine heh and other than it not playing well with my win network, and not being able handle my monitor as other than unknown I am happy with it