[ineverreinstall]

I have XP installed as one whole partition and want to know if I can use partition magic to make unallocated space so I can install the fedora version of linux. I have a Celeron 1.6 ghz 256MB RAM 60GB HD notebook.

I have never used Linux before and I want to see what all I commotion is about. So far it all sounds very good.
Thanks in advance.

P.S Can I also just install it on the same parition as XP? will it run slower? Given that I only have one HD, what will be the recommended way to go about this while keeping performance optimal.

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I think that partition magic might work, but I have not used it. You can also use "qtparted" or "gtparted". The first is available on the Knoppix Live CD.

The first thing to do is to backup your system, then defrag the disk.

If you just want to try things out for a bit, I would suggest using the Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, DSL OS, etc.). You can try some things without making any changes to your disk.

Also, I would suggest not having a single partition even if you use just Windoze.

There might be some versions of Linux which can be installed on the existing partition, but most need to have their own partitions.

My personal suggestion is to have a Windoze partition of around 10Gb or so, a boot partition of 100Mb, a root partition of around 6Gb and then the rest in reasonable sized partitions. Unless you need a really large partition, you have more options available if you have smaller partitions so that you can change things in the future.

[Kemasa]

I think that partition magic might work, but I have not used it. You can also use "qtparted" or "gtparted". The first is available on the Knoppix Live CD.

The first thing to do is to backup your system, then defrag the disk.

If you just want to try things out for a bit, I would suggest using the Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu, DSL OS, etc.). You can try some things without making any changes to your disk.

Also, I would suggest not having a single partition even if you use just Windoze.

There might be some versions of Linux which can be installed on the existing partition, but most need to have their own partitions.

My personal suggestion is to have a Windoze partition of around 10Gb or so, a boot partition of 100Mb, a root partition of around 6Gb and then the rest in reasonable sized partitions. Unless you need a really large partition, you have more options available if you have smaller partitions so that you can change things in the future.

[Numb Remxed]

if you dont know how to partition your harddrive, I wouldn't suggest installing Fedora. Go with ubuntu first. It's much easier to install and has partitioner in the installer.

[ditto]

SUSE also comes with a partitioner in the installer and I thought it was very easy to use. I currently have windows xp and suse 9.3 on my laptop..

check this post on picking a linux distribution
http://www.geekstogo...ose-t38170.html

[warriorscot]

Alot will come with a partioner but partition magic is really easy to use, if you have it i would reccomend it, just make sure to make a bootable partition not a logical one for data.