Multiple Operating Systems(?)

[DukeLeto]

Yes, I'm thinking about taking the first step (plunge?) into Nerdvana by installing a second operating system on my PC, and I was wondering if I could get some advice (I've never done anything like this before).

My criteria:

1. That there is an *actual* MS-DOS (or something like it, such as FreeDOS) under there somewhere, where I can access it if I have to.

2. The OS/GUI is *not* Windows-anything.

3. It costs little or no money.  (Primarily bacause I have little or no money. :P)

Now, I was thinging about Linux-something, but there are about 496.2 different versions of Linux out there that I can tell.  Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, Personal, Security...It makes my head spin.  I want one that is in English (obviously), works well with/on DOS, is easy to use (while not being condescending, like the ill-fated "HP Personal page".  Argh.), and offers fairly good compatability with Windows applications.  Oh yeah, and is free.  (Nothing picky about me, eh?)

Also, I guess I will need to partition my harddrive, but I would really rather not lose all of my data.  And no, I can't afford Partition Magic.

To top it all of, my floppy drive is broken. :-[  (Fortunately my CD-ROM drive is bootable.)

So, Doc (or anyone else), anthing that fits the bill? :)

(PS: I tried the PC Pitstop tests.  917, after doing everthing it reccommended, except enabling the 1394 port I don't use.  And after the connection optimizations, it was 2850kbps downstream/318 upstream.  "Most impressive". :))

[Atomic Mitten]

Well the first question is why do you need a second OS ?

the second is Linux is not compatable with most windows programs.

If you don't use Partition Magic, you can make partitions but you will have to reformat to do so, meaning you will lose everything on your PC, unless you back up the stuff you want to keep onto a CD R or DVD R.

When you do the pcpitstop test, always disable anti-virus software as it effects the result.

[Gobalopper]

I did it with XP and FreeBSD, although I only use FreeBSD. Here are the basic steps I took, using a 30GB hard drive.

1. Get CD's for both XP and FreeBSD. I just booted from the CD drive if you can't boot from CD you will need to get a few floppy disks.

2. Install Windows XP and partition the drives into a 20/10 GB split. I choose 20 for BSD since that is what I would be using most of the time. You only need to format the one partition with NTFS.

3. Once Windows is installed boot from the CD and install your other operating system. If its Linux, FreeBSD, or another Unix variety then they usually give you an option to install a boot manager that will let you choose which OS to boot to on startup. Don't install Windows second because it usually screws things up.

4. Format the drive using whatever filesystem it recommends and then if everything goes right you should have a menu on bootup that lets you choose which OS to load.

If you want to backup things and don't have another computer to save them on you could try burning them to a CD.

[gryphon]

and offers fairly good compatability with Windows applications

if you mean compatebilety as in installing Windows applications on Linux . . that's not going to work. There are however Linux versions for programms that also run on Windows. Like OpenOffice, Unreal Tournament .. they have a Linux and Windows version and are compatible between the to different OS versions.

Besides what Gobalopper mentioned .. I'd say to always install Windows first .. then Linux.

Just to mention .. . next to Linux you can also give a thought to BeOS. . it's pretty fast. .

Pesonally I alsways use Redhat

[Apollyon]

I've got win2k (3 times...), winME and an AmigaOS all installed...

[DukeLeto]

Gryphon: If I install BeOS on the same partition as Windows, will that corrupt anything?

Remember, I already have WinXP installed.

[gryphon]

If BeOS is installed properly it shouldn't conflict with anything. If I remember correctly you can install BeOS in such a way that it seems to be located in a folder of Windows fro mwhere you have to start the OS.