Re: Using Linux?
 

I'm 99.9% sure the ansewr is yes, but I'll ask anways. It's a very safe bet to backup your computer before doing any of this, correct?

Re: Using Linux?
 

Absolutely. Backup before installing Linux. And after. And very very often.

One more thing - make sure that you can recover from your backups as well - all my backups used to be to CDs, but I have recently discovered that I can't read my earliest CD-Rs any longer, namely ones from before 1999.

If you want to get started with Linux, I think that Red Hat Linux 9 or Fedora Core (either 1 or 2) are excellent choices. Everything is already set up for you. I found it quite easy to install Red Hat 7.2 (back when I first started) and immediately I had a development environment, excellent GUI, and office tools (KOffice).

Eventually, you will get annoyed with the fact that Red Hat/Fedora has customized everything just a little, enough to cause frustration to people who like to understand the complete workings of Linux. Right now, I'm very significantly confused by the graphical bootscreen of Fedora Core 2 (how the hell do they do that?).

But yes, backup and good luck!

Re: Using Linux?
 

Is using the backup program that comes w/ Windows XP a good program? (Sorry for the newbie-ish questions here, but hey; why not). I'm going to test RedHat on a LiveCD, and see if I like it.

Re: Using Linux?
 

SuSE has that too. It's called a Bootsplash. Here's an outline of how it works (and how to change it):

http://www.bootsplash.org/

There's also more splash screens available on KDE Look (I believe it was somewhere within this category, but could be wrong)
http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xsortmode=new&page=0

But that's a bit off topic, isn't it?

Re: Using Linux?
 

I have never used the Windows XP Backup tool, but I have heard that its not that good.

But, why even bother with a backup tool? Find all the files that you use, will use, and have ever used (eg all documents, pictures, music, thesises, codes, novels, etc.) and copy those onto your backup medium of choice. I use CD-Rs in the absence of something better.

And btw, is there such a thing as a Redhat livecd?

Re: Using Linux?
 

There isn't one pre-packaged as an ISO distributed directly by Redhat or the Fedora Project. It is possible to make one, of course, and there's most likely either a Redhat-derivative which is distributed as a LiveCD, or an "unofficial" LiveCD somewhere.

Knoppix and DemoLinux are Debian based, SuSE LiveCD is SuSE based (of course) and that covers the ones I've seen around lately.

Re: Using Linux?
 

I did it for all the registry info and stuff like that.

As for the LiveCD, I ment SuSE, not RedHat (sorry). The LCD of SuSE is availible here if you want to check it out by the way.

Re: Using Linux?
 

Yes. Linux requires 2 new file systems (neither Win32 or NTFS). I use the Hard drive backup utility in Nero. It does a sector copy to CD-Rs. The advantage is that even the partition table and MBR is preserved. The down side is that you have to restore the whole thing and you don't have access to individual files. Good for backing windows up before installing Linux.

Re: Using Linux?
 

Adios is at least one I'm aware of.

Re: Using Linux?
 

Well, requires isn't exactly true. There is, for example, a version of Slackware called Zipslack that will run off of Windows FAT partitions. I'm sure there are other distributions with this capability. Other distributions can do the same, with more or less effort. However, yes, the regular installation procedure is to create a native Linux file system of some kind, and most installers create a swap partition (however, if you already have a Windows partition, it's possible to share the Windows swap file, rather than creating a new parition to do the same thing). One example of a free sector by sector copying tool is dd (if Nero is not available). dd is almost certainly contained on all of the Live CD distributions.

Re: Using Linux?
 

I have been using Linux (of many varieties) on FAT partitions. I do this because I don't care about security and FAT is universally accessible. There are a few caveats about doing this though.

First, you can't have symlinks. A direct consequence of this is that you cannot compile a linux kernel (as far as I know) on a FAT filesystem, as one step in the compile involves the creation of a symlink. Second, you lose all security. Any user can access any part of the filesystem. A non-root user can still do pretty much anything on a FAT system. Third, you lose many of the features of chown (change ownership), chmod (change mode), and ACLs.

Even then, for my uses, the benefits of universal access of any OS to any OS far outweigh the problems. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are sure of what you are doing, but if you are sure of what you are doing, then there are better options. Until that Linux NTFS driver gets better.

Re: Using Linux?
 

Actually, ReiserFS, ext2, and ext3 can all be read by Windows. Not natively, of course.. but with some work, you can get it to work.

Most notably:
Explore2fs: http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm (r/w: ext2, ro: ext3)
rfstool: http://p-nand-q.com/download/rfstool.html (read-only and ignore journaling)

There might be some for jfs/xfs/etc.. but I don't feel like finding them :P E2fs works well, rfstool is.. decent.. but it does work.