Tell me if I could be able to run linux AND windows XP on a pc.
If so, how do i do it? I really want to test some linux stuff out so please tell me.

That's very easy. tikomedia,
I will explain for Mandrake Linux because I like this distro, but most of what I will tell you will work the same way with other distros. Simply, it's fast and easy with Mandrake.
OK, let's suppose everything is fine on your PC. Else you will have to correct things to make the starting point fine.
Microsoft Windows must be installed first. And then, you need some free space (available, not formatted) on your hard disk.
So, let's suppose that Microsoft Windows is already installed, and that there is some free space on your hard disk, or let's suppose that you have a second disk with nothing on it.
If this is not the case, you will have to manage this. One way (the hard way) is to re-install Microsoft Windows in advanced install mode, asking Microsoft to take only a fraction of the hard disk (ten gig on a 60 Gig disk is reasonable).
Then, while your Microsoft windows is perfectly working, you insert the Mandrake first CD, and shutdown your pc.
Then, you power on your PC while the first Mandrake CD is inserted, you will be asked if you want to install Linux (say Yes). Then answer all the questions, most of the default answers are the correct ones. When arriving at the disk space part, say that you want to "give the rest of the free space to Linux".
And that's all. At the end of the install, the system will reboot. And at each reboot it will ask you if you want to boot on Windows or on Linux. The default will be Linux, but this will be easy to change to Windows as default (if you prefer booting standardly to windows or having to press the "down" key to higlight Linux when you want to boot with Linux).
And that's all, folks!

Of course, you can do smarter things. What I do is
. I first install Windows.
. Then i create the windows partitions D:, E: and F: (for Data, for Entertainement Games and for Films) as FAT32 Microsoft Windows partitions.
. And I leave ten gig free on my disk, for Linux.

And when I install Linux and boot under Linux, I see the date created under Windows as Linux filesystems named /mnt/Windows1, /mnt/windows2, /mnt/windows3. Thas is performed automatically by le Mandrake installation script. The mp3 written by Microsft Windows are read in the /mnt/windows3/mp3 directory. And what I write under Linux in /mnt/windows2/transferfiles is seen by Midrosoft Windows in the disk D: in the directory named \transferfiles.

Simply magic, isn't it ?
Linux forever.

Hope this helped

Yordan

Its called Dual Booting.
There are some good tutorials out there.

Search google or linuxquestions.org

Basically, if you choose to use Mandrivia, Just download it, burn to a CD, and then install it by booting the CD.

Mandrivia's installer Can *shrink* the windows drive C:\ to make space for Linux.
Mandrivia will also setup dual booting automatically.

When you are finished, when you turn on your computer, a screen shows up with a menu showing "Linux" and "Windows"

you simply select which one you want to boot.

its all very simple.

Well, there are a few ways to do what you want. The first, and easiest way to do it is through dual booting. I personally recommend having at least 2 hard drives in your computer. This make it easier to be sure that you don't mess things up.I recommend having one drive for windows, and another drive for linux. The advantage of doing this is that if you decide to move one OS to a different computer, you just have to pull the hard drive, and put in a different system (and possibly change the boot setup).

Another possibility is using emulation. You can emulate windows on linux, or vice versa. From what I know, windows emulation for linux is much more developed.

A third option is using software like VMware. It lets you run multiple OS's at the same time. I've had little experience with it personally, but I know it is out there.

One of the best things about linux, is that it doesn't mind sharing a computer with other operating systems. Windows on the other hand really doesn't like it. Windows ignores any other OS's on your computer, though if you ever have to re-install windows for any reason, it will change the boot record, and make your computer forget about linux. If that happens, you will need some kind of boot disk for linux so that you can fix the boot record to allow switching between OS's. Linux will not only happily reside along side any other OS, but it will also let you manipulate stuff on your other partitions. I use linux to modify files on my windows partition quite often. It is also handy to use linux to do extensive searching through your files that windows can't easily do.

-YungBlood

P.S. In case you're wondering, I am currently using Red Hat linux. Though I have used many others, such as Slackware, Debian, Yggdrasil, FreeBSD, SuSe, and more. To me, Red Hat seems to offer the support for the most hardware. I have also used a few variaties of unix, but not many can be installed on an ordinary PC.

You can even install a number of Linuxes on the same hard drive. I would highly recommend this. Besides your Windows partition(s) you can make let's say 5 Linux partitions (4 different system partitions and 1 Home partition) and one Linux Swap partition. If you do so, you can install and test several different Linux Distros, save your data on the Home partition and let all Linuxes use the same Swap partition. Except for the bootloader, Windows will be kept untouched. Anyway, whatever you do ... hav a lot of fun!

Yup, those are the correct step, for me, it's taking a 120 GB HDD, split 65 GB to Linux and the rest to Windows

xboxrulz

Hi, Tikomedia.
"Dualboot" it is called ...
I've just done it using WinXP and Linux in a HDD.

Just simply install WinXP first,
Then Install Linux (I use Linux SuSE).

But firstly, you must have at leat 4Gb free space at HDD. Then all settings and configurations will be prepared by YaST (Linux), all you have to do is only choose, which space do you want to install the linux (if you have more than one partition).

Finally, when you start your pc, the Boot Loader will ask you wether boot using WinXP or Linux ....

Good Luck !!

Best Regards,
Osiris

>> How's your progress ??

seems that tikemedia forgot how to come back to his post, and is unable to read our replies!

sorry, my internet at home is down so i'm going to try to download and burn all the necesairy files on a cd and install it all on my pc.

I already had my HD partitioned so i guess i can make an extra partition for the linux part:D.

thanx for all the information.

I have Windows XP and ubuntu - highly recommended, Link - running on my PC.

All you got to do is install Windows first, the ubuntu installer takes care of the rest. In most cases the default settings produce a dual boot system flawlessly.

HTH,