Linux without losing Windows: dual-boot system

[Undertoad]

Having beautifully converted to Linux on the desktop at work, I've finally got my home system set up in a way where I can use Linux, but return to Windows for Battlefield 2, and Quicken, and other such "legacy applications".

I bought a new hard drive - a 320 GB Seagate, actually (but the $40 80 GB would do as well). I installed it, connected it up.

I downloaded the latest Fedora 7 i386 in DVD format from RedHat as an .iso image and burned that to a DVD.

I then installed it by booting the DVD - and told it to install itself to this new drive.

I followed the article here for some of the notions of how to get it done. The article is pretty techie-oriented. The whole process is detailed in many other places on the net. Googling for "dual-boot linux" gets a lot of good results, interesting information, and ideas. I'd say that this procedure is not for the average PC user -- if you quake at the idea of setting your BIOS to boot a different disk, never mind.

The whole point of this is to run Linux without endangering Windows at all. Windows sits untouched on the first, original drive.

I now get a menu (GRUB) when my system boots, and that menu basically asks me whether I want to start up the latest Fedora, or "Other". Selecting "Other", the system boots into the original Windows installation. I could easily change that menu, to have it ask me for Fedora or Windows, but for now, selecting "Other" to boot Windows is simply too delicious to change.

Problems: there have been a few. Mostly because all this stuff is cutting edge. Upgrading the kernel automatically, broke the nvidia drivers. Trying to run KDE with Beryl, crashed. But the nice thing about the dual-boot setup is that if I run into problems with the cutting-edge Fedora, I can return to Windows, open a browser, and 9 times out of 10, locate a solution by googling for the problem.

Of note: I can mount the Windows drives in Linux and get to all my old files.

What kills me: the wild amount of totally free software that I can download and install. Oh look, here's a free font browser. Oh look, seven different media players to pick from. OpenOffice, 100% free and 98% compatible.

I advise all techie sorts to try this. It's just too cool. If your BIOS supports it, you could probably even boot to an external disk to try it. Non-techie sorts can try it, but only if they have a techie on call.

And anyone with an "old" PC can experiment at will.