On 6/19/06, j_wrocky at comcast.net <j_wrocky at comcast.net> wrote: > Would like to install a Linux distro and also leave Windows XP Pro on the > HDD. > The Thinkpad is a G40 Series, Celeron 2.4 GHz CPU, 248 MB RAM, 24.GB HDD. > Is now running Windows XP Pro SP2. > > Any recommendations or gotcha's? > > I can download and burn any distro on to a CD or DVD. > I have SimplyMEPIS 6.0rc1 SuSE 10.1 (DVD), Kubuntu 6.06 on CD's now. > > I have the IBM restore disks. > > Jerry Weihrauch Windows XP is probably using NTFS filesystem. Check the kernel for the distro you plan to use to be sure it supports read/write NTFS support. I *think* newer kernel support it but it's been a while since I last looked. If not, you might want to create a FAT32 partition so that both Linux and XP can write files to share between OS's. Newer Thinkpads were shipping with a "recovery partition". The idea being that you've hosted your system and want to do a quick factory restore. You boot and press F12 (or some other key) and it reformats/reinstalls you Windows partition. You may choose to leave the recovery partition and use a tool like partition magic or some such to resize the existing Windows partition to free up space for Linux. Myself, I dd'd the recovery partition to an NFS mount to save it (so I could restore it later). I then wiped the drive (20 G) and create 4 partitions: hda1 10G FAT32 windows2000 (games, mp3 mule) hda2 1G linux swap hda3 4G linux ext2 '/' hda4 rest linux ext2 '/data' I'm using ext2 since ext3 writes to the hard disk nearly constantly and that just eats the battery. I gave up trying to figure out how to tune ext3 to write less often. Other filesystem may work better but I haven't tried them. The down side is if the laptop locks up I have longer fsck time. While I have had a few lockups, they've been rare and usually after a kernel update. I'm running Debian sarge and for the most part it's been very stable. I don't mess with hibernation, although that's supposed to work. I just use Fn+F4 and suspend with APM support and that works great. Good luck and let us know how it went. Scot