I just picked up a copy of SUSE enterprise server (at least I think it's called that). Anyway, I want to put it on my nice machine, which happens to have a installation of windows XP kind of buried in it. What I want to do is to be able to have the linux on a seperate partition as my windows, but be able to boot either or at start-up. Also, I need to be able to re-partition the partion that I have now, without reformatting it.

Im not sure if SuSE can do this automatically i know mandrake doesl)... anyone else know ???

boot the suse install cd, and only go as far as the partiton settings.
is there any options to re-size the windows partiton ???

if so, do it

if not, then abort the install.

you need to resize (shrink) your windowsXP partiton before booting the suse install cd.

You can either do this with partiton magic for windowsXP,
or with linux-ntfs for linux. http://linux-ntfs.sf.net

partition magic is not free, (dont know if you can get a trial version)

if not, then boot knoppix, and use linux-ntfs or qtparted to resize.

I would heavily recommend not using Partition Magic. Myself and many of my friends have had problems when resizing NTFS partitions with it. If you're not using NTFS then go ahead with it if you're more comfortable with it. I would recommend using qtparted, it's worked great for us in the past.

this can be done with any linux OS..

first install the windows OS since microsoft has a very high reputation in ruining a linux or unix systems boot loader.

aftet the windows OS system is installed [which is the case for you] you can then install the linux or unix OS..

NOTE: dont use OEM versions since they tend to search for specific chips on the pcs. red hat linux is a good smple of non OEM linux.

if your harddisk have partitions then good, use the remaining partition for the linux / unix install.

if not follow the suggestion above regarding partition magic..

aftet the partition have been setp up properly you can install the linux / unix OS and they all have a multi boot software which is GRub for red hat linux.

I won explain how to install the linux/unix OS since they all have different ways of instalation.

but like i said, not with any distro installer.

ive never seen a distro other than mandrake that had an ntfs-linux fronend build into the install program.

most of the distro's have a bootloader though. would be installes on your linux disk.

basicly: you need:
a windows partition
at least... let's say 3gig of space
then during setup, make a swap partition of about the size of your memory. the rest of the free space, you make ext3 partition, mounting point /


if you install windows after you installed linux, you can boot from your cd and most of the times, type "rescue" as boot command.
that'll give you the option to reinstall your bootloader.

my 2 cents

his porblem is resizing the ntfs partiton

Your right about that ntfs thingy, even linux dont have a built-in support for ntfs. I still need to patch it to load ntfs partitions.

most of the time, I use some more software before I install linux/unix just to repartition the harddrive.

Guess linux/unix must have support in their installers..

aw, overread that.

maybe this might help, but i guess you'll need a knoppix copy or another live cd (like ubuntu, which has apt-get, which is great)

http://reiber.org/twiki/bin/view/Linux/LinuxNTFS

otherwise: partition magic, it's the easiest way i guess.

just so you dont get any more confused than u need to be, you only need that link if you are using an old version of linux.
the ntfs driver is built into modern kernels.