5720 and Linux n00b

1 - Ubuntu is generally rather noob friendly and works just fine out of the box on most systems. Ubuntu is only about 2 years old so I wouldn't be surprised if there is still a small bug here and there, but nothing show-stopping.

2 - There are no specs in your sig. But that doesn't matter, just about all modern distros that are kept up to date (ubuntu, gentoo, arch, mepis, etc) will run most any software (some with more work than others sometimes)

3 - How big is your hd? Back when i used to dual boot (now i am linux-only) i had it split 20 windows / 40 linux no shared partition since linux can access (and now write, although risky) NTFS. I say you should be just fine with ~10gb for linux, 15 to 20 will set you up for a good run for sure. As for games on the shared partition, don't bother since you won't be able to run them in linux anyway. If you will create a shared partition its only good for office documents, music, movies, and pics, NOT GAMES AND OTHER SOFTWARE.

4 - this will depend on the distro as to what site i'll point you to. I'll tell you right now that ubuntuforums, arch linux forums, and gentoo forums (and wikis) are really good to show you how to get stuff done. I think that ubuntu and gentoo have the best user documentation there is.

5 - BE PATIENT! There will be times when you're gonna wanna blow your brains out. I've been using linux for 4 years now and i still have those moments. Don't be afraid to go on forums ask questions and do lots and lots of googling. The initial setup might be long and painful (up to a week worth of work) but once all the little things have been smoothed out, its gonna be the best damn os you ever used.

note on ubuntu:
although it works great usually, has lots of info, and a huge user forum, its compiled to be used with as much hardware as possible, and thus it means its i386 (does not use all the latest cpu optimizations like sse sse2 mmx, etc) so it will be slower than more modern (or custom) i686 (or amd64/k8 for amd64 cpus) setups. What I am trying to say is that you might have heard "linux is fast" but you won't see that in distros like ubuntu. ARCH is probably the easiest speed-optimized distro i've ever used, to get the most speed you probably want gentoo (NOT NOOB FRIENDLY).

1. good choice

2. you should be fine. lucky you got nvidia (ati drivers for linux suck...i got ati unfortunatly)

3. 30gb should be more than enough room for linux even if you choose to install linux games (Enemy Territory and ArmyOps have native linux versions, if you never played either of these games they are fantastic!)

4. www.ubuntuforums.org and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ should tell you everything you need to know

5. With ubuntu i have a fully working system and then some (xgl/compiz, games, custom theme, etc) within 3 hours

6. You DONT have to reinstall windows. You just need to resize your NTFS partition to say 70gb. Then make a swap thats 2x the amount of ram (4gb in your case...you'll need this to hibernate), and then 26gb remaining for a linux proper partition. my recommendations are ext3 and reiserfs (ext3 is more bulletproof, reiserfs is faster). If I am not mistaken Esspresso (the Ubuntu Installer) comes with a pretty good partitioning program to let you do all of that. Or, while you wait if you have Partition Magic available, you can use it to create the layout on your disk. Of course, if you feel you want to reinstall windows anyway, feel free to just erase disk, partition and install everything fresh. In that case INSTALL WINDOWS FIRST so that grub (linux bootloader) can configure everything properly.

also to clear up a future question you might have on Ubuntu vs Kubuntu vs Edubuntu vs Xubuntu.

Ubuntu - This is where the "-buntu" project began in 2004. This is I think by far the best of the family. It comes with the latest Gnome desktop and many goodies. Well configured, new and improved artwork in dapper, and overall a pretty smooth distro to work with. <---my recommendation

Kubuntu -- some people just swear by the KDE desktop (i myself am a gnome fan), I find KDE to be bloated, slow, and less useful than Gnome. Also the last time I tried Kubuntu it was still buggy and unfinished. Although its getting better there are still some bugs that are specific to Kubuntu, that Ubuntu doesn't have.

Edubuntu -- dont even think about this one. just includes extra networking/workgroup and education programs. you dont need this.

Xubuntu -- the more advanced member of the family. XFCE4 is a light desktop that will seem less useful to a n00b user compared to the full-featured kde or gnome. The upside is that its faster, the downside is that it will require substantially more initial configuration.

yeah pretty much. that should get you going in the right direction

i am not exactly sure what the installer uses as a partitioner, but if you run into trouble with it, i believe eventhough you're in livecd mode you can still use apt so taht you can "apt-get install gparted" and then use that to setup your partitions.

or check this out: http://nishants.net/articles/ntfsresize.htm (start with step 7)

Uh you are missing one VERY important step...

DEFRAG YOUR HD FIRST!

This helps prevent data corruption if your partition gets resized and cuts out some data.

Seablade

thats not linux, thats your bios telling you that you forgot something.

did you change your boot sequance so that it boots from CD before it tries to load whats on your harddrive?


btw, i just installed the latest Dapper Drake myself and the formating tool that they give you is powerful enough to let you setup everything the way you like.


also once you get it installed and get networking up (wifi *should* work out of the box) give Automatix http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...tomatix+dapper a shot. it will configure everything that on average takes about an hour or so to do in 5 minutes.


btw...nice glossy screen


EDIT:
for those interested this is the most pain-free way to get xgl/compiz up and running (takes about 15 minutes) http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=147049 however do note there ahve been bugs reported with nvdia cards and that you won't be able to really play games well with good 3d support without some more hacking.


EDIT#2:
--------
so here i am just over 2 hours past the initial install and the system is 100% ready to go with video accelleration, media codecs, extra software i might need, xgl/compiz, gaim2.0 and the latest firefox with the original icon (not the "world" icon).

here is what i am saying you gonna do.

1. DEFRAG (i dont even really see the point in this since you're gonna be deleting everything anyway...rigth?...unless you wanna just resize xp)

2. put all your files you wanna save on a flash drive / usb hard drive / burn them to cd / move them to another computer on your network. ... BACK UP

3. Stick in livecd and fireup a partioning tool (gparted, qtparted, cfdisk, fdisk, whatever). PARTITION.
Layout:
/dev/hda1 --- NTFS --- Install WindowsXP + progs
/dev/hda2 --- FAT32 --- document folder to be shared between both OSes
/dev/hda3 --- SWAP --- make it 2x the amount of ram
/dev/hda4 --- ReiserFS --- Install Linux + progs

4. Install XP on hda1 as you normally would. + drivers + progs

5. Install Linux. + drivers + progs


GRUB does NOT need a partition, the bootloader goes into the MBR (first block of your hdd) GRUB's files (config file, etc) go into the /boot/grub folder on your linux partition.

One thing you might wanna do to make sure you can get to both windows and linux in the event grub gets corrupted is to actually learn how to configure grub manually. It's not that uncommon that your mbr can get corrupted.

If you have the free time and feel like learning this then I suggest installing gentoo up to the point where you can boot into linux from your HD. You'll learn some invaluable things. I don't recommend Gentoo as your main distro, but it's a good learning tool. You can do this all through vmware without damaging your current setup. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml

I had 2 instances where the bootloader got corrupted (the doing of something in windows). All I had to do to fix it was boot my gentoo disc and reinstall grub to the mbr. Fixed it with very little effort. The alternative would have been reinstalling windows and linux. A gparted boot disc may also fix the problem with a gui but I never tried it.

BT....don't scare tha man. Grub (i am guessing you're gonna install Ubuntu or something) is usually really good about finding both linux and windows and setting it up properly...no worries there.

Siul1313 - i have been using Ubuntu on my Rock XCT (same as 5720) for several months now and the only thing that will not work is the webcam.

Persevere as once you are past a few of your initial frustrations you will be pleased you did.

Yeah, I know. But using a gentoo boot disc saved my ubuntu/windows setup a couple times because of WINDOWS crashing. When people have grub problems they usually say f%$@ linux and just reinstall windows when the fix could have taken them 5 minutes.

Probaby not the best thread for my rant.

The file should download as an .iso, download it to your desktop (icon will look like a CD) then in nero use burn image to cd. This should work as a bootable cd.

actually if he has winrar installed icon will look like a rar archive. ITS NOT A RAR. Simply burn it with nero or whatever (dont just drag it onto a data cd, burn it as an IMAGE).

Desktop = its a livecd with a GTK (graphical) installer. Lacks advanced options but works for 95% of the people

Alternate = Text based installer w/o the livecd option. Has advanced options for network installs and RAID configurations.

Maybe this will help.
http://www.linuxloader.com/modules.p...howpage&pid=28

PDR60