For IT Duers, I Have Unix Questions

[Yavin4]

I run a 32-bit Dell PC with 2 GB of RAM, and I want to intsall Unix as a separate operating system to work along side Windows. Can I do this? If so, what's the best way of doing this?

Thanks for the advice.

[Lilyhoney]

1. Do you mean Linux?

Download just about any of the distributions, during installation they will allow you to install the boot menu.

Try something like Redhat or Mandrake or one of the many other distributions.

Good luck.

[RoyGBiv]

2. Ditto the question ...

Do you mean Linux?

I suppose you could install Unix, but I'm not sure why you'd want to.

Anyway, yes, you can install Linux as a separate OS. How you do that depends on your setup.

Are you running XP currently? If so, XP most likely took up your entire hard drive, and if you are going to be using just one, you'll need to resize the partition to make room for Linux. That's possible. Lots of people do it. *I* don't, in part because Windoze doesn't work and play well with others, and some issue arise that can be irritating down the road.

The best way, imo, is to get another hard drive. Just a small, cheap one will do, say an 80GB, which you can get for around $50 now. After that, you need to decide which OS you want on your master drive. Most people will recommend Windoze and using a program to handle all the tricky details and install a boot loader that will let you choose between OSes. The way I had mine set up was the opposite. Linux was on my master drive and Windoze on the slave. Windoze doesn't like this -- will refuse to boot actually depending on the configuration -- but you can use the Grub bootloader to "trick" Windoze into thinking it is on the master drive when you want to boot it. It's just a matter of adding a couple lines to the grub config file.

Basically you need to make some decisions about how you want to set this up, and we can go from there. You also might want to post this in the Computer Help and Support Group to draw more responses before this falls into the obscurity of the Lounge. I've given up on Windoze entirely except for game playing and don't even have a Windoze drive in my system permanently. (I use removable trays, which is another option that doesn't require screwing around with boot loaders and config files.) There are others who hang out there, however, who do this or have more experience with setting it up who might be able to offer more detail advice once you get to the "doing" stage.

[billyskank]

3. Well, you can install Solaris, and there's the BSD option

like FreeBSD, NetBSD. But you will probably have issues with all of these because of lack of drivers. Your best option is almost certainly Linux, as the previous posters mentioned. Best way to try it would be to download a live CD like Knoppix (google it, you'll find it) which can be booted directly from the CD and doesn't have to be installed on your computer.