[conspire] Prospective attendee wants advice, and is RSVPing

[Rick Moen]

----- Forwarded message from Adam Cozzette <mystagor at sbcglobal.net> -----

Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:14:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Adam Cozzette <mystagor at sbcglobal.net>
To: installers at linuxmafia.com
Subject: RSVP

Hello!
 
Just letting you know I'll be coming to the next Installfest on 
September 10. I'm bringing my fairly new Hp pavilion Windows XP box which I 
would like to dual-boot with Linux. I'm not sure how to partition the 
hard drive, but I will backup everything I want and bring with me the Windows XP
restore disk so that a destructive repartition won't be a problem. Um, I haven't 
decided on a distribution yet but if you have a few distributions 
handy, almost any will probably be ok. My primary goal is to get Linux 
installed so that I can poke around under the hood and learn how things 
work; a distribution with compilers and whatnot for Python, Java, C, C++, 
etc. would be great too. As I understand this is somewhat standard for Linux, but let me know if I should bring my own copy of a distribution.
 
Well, thanks a million. I've read the info on the website, but let me 
know if there is anything else I should know and I'll see you on the 
10th!

----- End forwarded message -----
----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 18:34:32 -0700
To: Adam Cozzette <mystagor at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: RSVP
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>

Quoting Adam Cozzette (mystagor at sbcglobal.net):

> Hello!

Hello, back!

> Just letting you know I'll be coming to the next Installfest on
> September 10. I'm bringing my fairly new Hp pavilion Windows XP box
> which I would like to dual-boot with Linux.

OK.  If you could write back and tell us the exact HP model number -- 
e.g., zv5231ea, zt1121s, 3270, 3190, etc. -- then we can research
whether you're likely to have any driver problems for any of the unit's 
constituent chipsets.

> I'm not sure how to partition the hard drive, but I will backup
> everything I want and bring with me the Windows XP restore disk so
> that a destructive repartition won't be a problem.

No sweat; we can help with that.  The one thing you should consider
doing is running a complete disk defragment, before coming, preferably
with a good defragmenter like Executive Software's Diskeeper Lite, which
you can download off the Net for free.  (Google for "Diskeeper Lite".)

FYI, the "Windows recovery disk" that you got with the PC would, if you
were to boot it and run its "restore" routine, wipe out your _entire_ 
hard drive and overwrite it with HP's preload of XP Home (or whatever)
for that unit.  That means that it, among other things, wipes out any
installed Linux partitions.

Note that a "Windows recovery disk" is, in that sense and others,
absolutely not a general-purpose Windows installer CD.  For one thing,
it won't configure Windows usably for any computer other than your
particular HP Pavillion model.  And, as mentioned, it has nothing to
permit you to specify what partitions to create or use:  It just
summarily wipes out everything on your hard drive, then overwrites the
disk in one, non-customisable operation.

To own a general-purpose installer for the OS, you'd have to buy a
second, full-retail copy.  Isn't that cute?  ;->

> Um, I haven't decided on a distribution yet but if you have a few
> distributions handy, almost any will probably be ok.

We have just about every half-way common Linux and BSD distribution:
http://linuxmafia.com/cabal/installfest/#distros

Here's as good a place as any to start, in picking one:
http://linuxmafia.com/~karsten/Linux/linux-new.html

Author Karsten M. Self has finally added the classic words of woe, known
to all who've tackled the subject of distribution selection, to his page:

   The original plan for this guide was to have a relatively brief page
   touching on these themes. Approaching 20 pages now, this is clearly no
   longer the case....

(Hah.  Been there, done that.)

> My primary goal is to get Linux installed so that I can poke around
> under the hood and learn how things work; a distribution with
> compilers and whatnot for Python, Java, C, C++, etc. would be great
> too. As I understand this is somewhat standard for Linux, but let me
> know if I should bring my own copy of a distribution.  

You are so right.  Again, quoting Karsten:

   The LWN distributions page shows well over 400 distros, though most
   are quite specialized, and a handful account for most general use. 
   One may stand out though _any_ should be well suited to your needs.

Closest I personally come to the "What's the best Linux distro?"
flamewar is here:

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=kicking#distro

See you later!


----- End forwarded message -----