Vista & Linux Double Boot

I am considering installing Ubuntu Linux to run as a double boot on my new laptop. I purchased the laptop with Vista Home Premium and I need to keep it for some of my games and software. Ex. Guild Wars, Halo, Visual C++ Express. I am just wanting to run Linux to see what it is like and I am wondering whether or not I could run Vista and Linux on the same hard drive. I have at least 70GB of space left and my C partition contaisn about 103 GB. I just bought the laptop a few days ago. I am just wanting to know this because I am thinking of getting Linux and possibly an external hard drive. The hard drive though is not very high on my priority list. So is this possible on the same hard drive or do I need a seperate hard drive for Linux.

Just resize your partition so you can have like 20GB of free space for linux, then when you install Ubuntu tell the installer to only use free space on the hard drive to make the linux partition and thats it.

To resize your partition in Vista, right click on my computer and select Manage, then in the left panel click Disk Management under Storage, you will see all the partitions on your drive, you might have a recovery partition, anyway right click on the C: partition and select Shrink.

I'd resize the partitions from within the Ubuntu installer - it works much better than Vista's. First, defragment the hard drive (if you need to). Then pop the Ubuntu CD in and wait for it to bring the desktop up. Click the Installation icon and go through until you hit the question about partitioning. Click the radio button to say you want to do it manually and wait for the 'picture' of your disc to come up. It's not entirely necessary to do it manually, but it makes it an awful lot easier to work out what is going on later, and is easier to recover from my way if you screw everything up

Shrink down the size of the partition Vista is installed on to create some free space. You are going to need at bare minimum 12GB for Ubuntu, so make sure you create enough free space. Then you will need to create 3 new partitions, following the directions below.

• Partition size 10GB, type ext3, mount as / (root).
• Partition size should be whatever is left on the drive minus 2GB, type ext3, mount as /home.
• Partition size 2GB, type SWAP, mount as SWAP.

You will also probably be required to provide a mount point for the Vista partition. Just give it a logical name like /windows or /vista.

Tick the boxes to format the 3 new partitions, but obviously NOT your Vista partition!

Hit Next a few more times and let it install.

NB: The partitioner can take a while to load and sort out what it is doing. Don't quit the installer, just be patient and wait until the partitioning screen comes up.

This article will tell you everything you need to know on how to dual boot with vista and a linux flavor. It also the uses ubuntu software so it should be a quick process to get it all set up. Or if you feel very adventurous go for the ultimate triple boot with XP, Vista, and Linux installed.

Why stop there??? Get a real fancy set-up, a Mac Pro with FOUR 750GB hard drives and set it up for QUAD boot! That'd be cool... Wonder if anyone's done it...

Found here. Notice the dates when reading. I think that it's completely possible to have the choice of four operating systems on board. Wonder if you could run them all at once...

you said that you just wanted to test out linux, you could use ubuntu's 'live boot' feature or you can just install it on a virtual PC, it works well, because if you don't like (almost impossible) it would be very annoying deleting a whole partition, but with virtual PC, you can just delete the whole 'virtual hard drive'

Well, I kinda don't know how to do some of this stuff. Is there a way that somebody could provide a tutorial or something. I like the idea that csp came up with. I am just wanting to try it out and not have to do a lot of stuff to my computer. Well thanks.

If you just want to take a look at Ubuntu without doing anything then you can use a Live CD as csp4.0 suggested. However, this is not the same as installing the operating system - you will be unable to save files, install software, etc. and the CD is required each time you want to use Linux. This is just to give an example of some of the default software, some of the customisation available, the speed, etc.

To run a live CD of Ubuntu, go here. Pick Ubuntu 7.10 under the Desktop section. Under the next heading select whether you have a 32-bit PC (top radio button) or a 64-bit PC (middle radio button). Pick a location and hit the Start Download button. You will end up with a ~700MB .ISO file. That is a CD image, so open it with your burning software (something like Nero or Sonic) and burn that to a CD. Pop that CD into your computer and restart, wander off while it loads, and eventually you will get a desktop pop up. That is the live CD.

You follow exactly the same steps to install Ubuntu, if you decide you like it - you'll see the Install icon on the Ubuntu desktop.

Ok, I burned a Live CD and have looked at the OS a little. What all can I do with Ubuntu on the Live CD. I am liking it so far.