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[Deusstyles]

There's no real question here, just thought I'd let everyone know my story. So I decided to install Linux as a second OS on a laptop I just bought, so I made a new logical drive on the HDD. Well it was the fifth logical drive(because for some reason Lenovo decided to have four from the start) and me not thing about about it totally FUBAR'd the MBR. Long story short, one repartition and a network install of Slackware later I still can't get wireless to work. *sigh* I'm almost ready to give up and just install windows 7 back on the damn thing, but I really wanted it to work. 

[Zathu]

I think the best way to get a dual boot going for playing around is installing Ubuntu via Wubi. It installs from Windows into a virtual drive image stored as a file in the Windows partition and drops a boot option in the Windows boot menu. Uninstalls through Add/Remove Programs.

But for something more exotic like slackware, having a second drive is a winner.

[Teo McDohl]

Yeah, I'll never install Linux on the same HDD as Windows ever again.  With the way Ubuntu wants the boot loader, the chances for Windows to fry seem too much for me. 

[Deusstyles]

Yeah, I've noticed Grub does that a lot. Lilo seems a bit more sable and more secure which is fun times.

I went with Slackware because it's exotic. I wanted something that forced my to learn more about the OS. Package manager like apt-get, yum, and YaST make it it all too easy to not have to figure out the dependencies and such. Also Vim still scares the ever living hell out of me, another thing I really need to learn.

I've been playing around with Ubuntu, Fedora, Cent, Slackware, OpenSUSE and Backtrack on USB drives, live CDs, VMs, and the Wubi thing a few times. But until it's the only option for the computer I generally just fall back to windows and sort of forget about them. My goal is to get this configured the way I want then try a LFS(Linux From Scratch) install. That's going to be the painful one.

[Tzu]

Recommendation:

If you want to keep Windows and run Linux, run from LiveCD's or use a VirtualBox (or related emulation service). Far less hassle.

If you want to run Linux as the native OS, start with something Debian based, they are far smoother and easier to manage, then if you want something more fancy, do it after you've spent enough time in native Linux to be able to figure the crap out without troubleshooting every step.  :-P


Disclaimer: I am not by any means a Linux expert. I ran Ubuntu on a P3 for awhile and had issue after issue, and eventually scrapped it on my EeePC netbook for Crunchbang. I don't have much experience outside of Debian, but I know from looking into the others, they just frighten me. Be prepared to live in bash if you want to do something like LFS, and prolly gonna need to have a Windows PC nearby to troubleshoot everything.  lol

[Deusstyles]

Yeah I gave up and installed windows again. I found out that the card they use in this laptop uses the same antenna for both in WiFi and the Bluetooth and it's all non slandered and such. So it's working with the Lenovo drivers install now, but I still haven't found a solution to have it work in Linux.

I've been playing with them on VMs, and lives CDs for a while I wanted a more in depth experience all well. :-/

[Tzu]

Fair. I just meant it's best to try to work out hardware issues first with that kinda stuff. Yeah anything non-standard can be a bitch to find support for... :-(

[Teo McDohl]

Whenever I install Linux, I say to myself "well, that's nice" and then never touch it again.