So many versions of Linux, what do I do!!!

[gobeavs]

Originally Posted by Ashley Weed

Its time to revive a very dead thread of mine.....

I have to finally give in, and decide how I want to run Linux. I had been working with the Live CD. However, I'm "moody" and my computer is even "moodier" so, I'd really like to not have to make it run from a CD.

a) Do I have to completely remove everything to partition my HD, in order to place Linux on the HD? When I do this, can I place the Live CD version on the HD or will I have to obtain another version? Or is it simple, and I can just keep everything the way it is (WinXP OS), and partition my Linux area.

No, just defrag your hard drive to try to get all of your data near the beginning, and during most linux installs you can just cut off some free space from the end of your windows partition and use it for linux. There are not gaurantee's that your windows data will still be there though.

b) I have the resources to Ghost my WinXP OS. Would this save me a lot of trouble. Then start all over. Create two partitions - but then do I need to locate another version of Linux other than the Live CD?

It depends...if you really need to save windows, it may be comforting to gaurantee yourself that windows will still work by ghosting and starting all over, but I have never had any problems taking some space from a windows partitiona and using it for windows, just make sure the windows partition has the space to give.

For installing linux, the liveCD may work. Some distrobutions you can install from the liveCD (knoppix), others do not (Ubuntu). If you are still open to distribution suggestions, I now recommend either ubuntu (ubuntulinux.org) or mepis (http://www.mepis.org). They are both based off of Debian, so you get the great package management system apt-get, which makes them in my mind a lot easier to use. I have never tried Mepis, but based off of what I have read, out-of-the-box it will be easier to use than most other distributions because it comes pre-configured with various media plugins and such. With Ubuntu and other distributions you need to install those yourself. Mepis and Ubuntu both have liveCDs, but you can only install from Mepis'.