Linux newbe, some questions

[johnny1111]

Ok here goes, I just ordered a Dell notebook, an Inspiron 8000 with a 20 gig hard drive. I want to dual boot Win 2000 & Linux. I an not sure what distro to use, I was thinking Red Hat, but I?ve heard some negative things about ver 7.0, I?d use 6.2 in it?s place, but will it recognize all my hardware since it is an older version? Does any one have an opinion on weather RH 7 is ok or not, or should I use ver 6.2?, or even a different distro altogether?
I also would appreciate any info on how to do the install, the notebook is going to come with Windows ME & I don?t know what OS to install first (over ME). I also would like to here any advise on how to split up the partitions, like do I need to make a bootable partition with two other partitions for each OS? I was thinking I?d do something like5-7 gigs for Linux & the rest for windows, or should I evenly split the HD between the two? Any and all advice is appreciated, Thank you-John

 

[AgentOrange]

To answer all your questions.....LinuxNewbie.org It has NHF's on everything from choosing a distro to dual booting. Also a very friendly forum

 

[imhotepmp]

Unless your hardware is newer than rh 6.2 i doubt there will be any major issues. If there is you always have the excellent people on this board to help you out.




<< notebook is going to come with Windows ME &amp; I don?t know what OS to install first (over ME). >>



Install WinME first, then install RH. It wil install LILO, the boot loader which will laow you to boot WinME.




<< any advise on how to split up the partitions, like do I need to make a bootable partition with two other partitions for each OS? >>



Unless youre going to do alot with LInux, you wont need more than 2g for the linux partition. Also, the linux partition will have to be split up into smaller parriions:
&quot;/&quot; - around 120MB
&quot;/var&quot; - around 50MB
Swap Space - This is equivalent to the paging file in Windows, except thats its an actual partition. Usually your needs dictate the size of this. I usually havve around 200MB.
&quot;/usr&quot; - this is where all your app go> I would use all the remaing space on your Linux partion for this.

Dual Booting



Partitions

Hope this helps

also you may want to head over to ArsTechnica Forums I've found they're pretty helpful over there as well.

edit:corrected speeling errors, and added link to ars


imhotep(MP)

 

[Workin']

<< Unless youre going to do alot with LInux, you wont need more than 2g for the linux partition. Also, the linux partition will have to be split up into smaller parriions: >>

You don't even need to get that fancy - the linux partition really only needs two &quot;sub&quot; partitions - the swap space (make that 2X your physical RAM), and the rest of the space can be given to /, you don't have to have /usr or /var with Red Hat

 

[BOFH]

here are a couple pages on setting the box up

http://orion.chem.vt.edu/i8000/
http://biochem.uthscsa.edu/~demeler/i8000/
http://www.usmedia.nl/joel/inspiron.html

 

[Louie1961]

If you are interested in Red hat, I would wait for the next release, which I think will be soon. I am running a beta 2 version of red hat 7.1...very slick. It has the latest version of Xfree86, which recognized my Nvidia GeForce 2MX card right away without any extra work. In addition, it has the new 2.4 kernel, KDE 2.0.1, gnome 1.2, etc., etc.

I like it a bit better than mandrake 7.2, but it is almost a tie.

 

[najar]

I'm using RH 7 with no problems. I guess its just fine for us newbies..