my OS question dump...

[Descend492]

OK, I have a few questions so here goes:

I just got a new (used) laptop - IBM 570E PIII 500 Mhz, 192 Mb RAM, 12Gb HDD.
This is my first foray into laptops, so I really don't know much about them.


It currently has 98 on it, but there's no way I'm going to stick with that. The laptop has a sticker that says win2k compatible on it, so can I essentially format the HDD (same way as on a desktop - boot to floppy, fdisk then format?), and install win2k as I would on any old desktop? Will most of the devices be recognized right off the bat?

Also, I've been considering the switch to WinXP, but am not going to do it on my desktop because of the hassle involved. However, can/should I go to WinXP on this laptop? If a system is 2k compatible, will it essentially be XP compatible as well? Will XP be any slower or faster?

Finally (for the laptop section): I am a completel Linux newbie, but I want to install it on this laptop to play around with. Any suggestions on how I should go about this (i.e. drive partitioning between Linux and Win2k, how Linux would work with the IBM components?).




Also, regarding my desktop:
Here's my setup:

win2k
three partitions:

HD1: C: (3Gb) Win2k sytsem files
HD1: D: (37Gb) data and normal programs
HD2: H: (8Gb) recently formatted - so therefore empty

I want to install Mandrake 9.0 on this second HDD and do a dual boot.

Can I install it completely on this HDD? i.e. can I put all my Linux partitions on the second HDD, even the boot sector? Or do I need to screw around with my Windows partitions to get a boot sector in the early part of the primary HDD?

Also, I have the Geforce2 MX video card. I tried installing Linux a couple of years ago, and I had a lot of hassle because of this video card. Have the new Linux distros fixed the NVIDIA driver problems? WIll the video card be recognized from the start or will I need to download and play around with lots of stuff.

Lots of questions, I know. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

 

[n0cmonkey]

Basically treat this as a tricky desktop. For Win2k there shouldnt be any really out there pitfalls to watch for. Check IBM's site for drivers for specific hardware (incase win2k doesnt automatically install everything) and you should be fine.

As for Linux, it shouldnt be too tough. Ive heard good things about IBM laptops and free Unix-like OSes, so it shouldnt be too tough.

 

[wjsulliv]

Linux install on IBM laptops is supposed to be fairly easy and has been widely done. Check the Linux on Laptops website and see what and how people had installed Linux on your laptop. In terms of partitioning the hard drive, check the linux faq's and some of the linux sites to tell you how big to make your swap, root, and user partitions (or atleast to view recommendations)

As far as installing a Microsoft OS on an IBM, just make sure drivers exist for everything. I recently saw some older IBM Laptops for sale at a computer show and the seller had reformated the hard drive and done a fresh install of Windows 98. However, Win 98 didn't have many of the drivers and the seller never went and downloaded them, thus in the device manager there were 10 ! errors. This was especially bad because the computer couldn't recognize the ide channels or controllers, thus no floppy or cd-rom functions.

In terms of Win 2k, most things should be recognized. In Win XP I would think everything would be recognized (it was on my 390E).


As for your desktop, read the FAQ's about dual booting linux and windows. But basically you can get everything linux on the second hard drive and then add a reference to the boot file to your windows loader. Thus you'll get the option to boot linux from the windows boot loader on drive 1, but not have anything linux on drive 1.