[Jayce]

I have 2 HDD's now. a 200 gig with XP + an 80 gig spare. If I get an 80 gig SATA as I plan to do to run Linux, can I throw extra files on the 80 gig slave as backup? The difference is, they just wouldn't open if I tried to open them in XP, right?

Also - I'm kind of a rookie with linux. In fact, I've never used it, but I'm going to be studying it this year and I figured I'd pick it up and get acquianted with it. With Windows, I'm very familiar with it, and I understand the whole lineup - 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, etc. What's it like with Linux? What's the latest version? Where do I get it? Is NewEgg a good place to order it since I'll already be ordering the HDD to run Linux from there?

Only thing I can see being a pain is the fact that GTA San Andreas won't be able to run in Linux. Anybody ever run into this?

[macdude425]

First question: correct.

Second question: DON'T ORDER LINUX!! Go to this website and look around, to try and find a Linux "distro" that you like.
http://distrowatch.com

[Jayce]

Say I get another HDD to run Linux. What do I do? Download it on my main drive, then go to my computer in XP and drop over the files? I mean what would I do?

Wait - burn it to a disc. I'm so smart.

I guess I'll download Ubuntu, burn it to a blank cd/dvd, wait for my other hard drive to come in and run it.

Is there anything special I should know about SATA? I have an MSI K8N Neo4 motherboard that supports SATA, but should I be looking at SATA 150 or the SATA 3 GB/s stuff? Or doesn't it matter?

[jmhill1976]

Originally posted by Jayce
I have 2 HDD's now. a 200 gig with XP + an 80 gig spare. If I get an 80 gig SATA as I plan to do to run Linux, can I throw extra files on the 80 gig slave as backup? The difference is, they just wouldn't open if I tried to open them in XP, right?

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you planning on adding the 80GB drive into your current system and dual-booting between the two? Are you planning on adding another 80 GB drive, in addition to the one you currently have?

You can mount NTFS partitions as read/writeable under Linux using aftermarket tools (I used the Paragon NTFS driver), but I'm not aware of any tool which will allow you to mount EFS partitions under Windows. Doesn't mean that there aren't any, it just means that it's never occurred to me to do so, so I've never looked into it.

Unless you can find a reliable utility that will allow you to do so, I would just recommend partitioning the 80 GB drive so that you have some addtional space to back up your files. 40 GB should be fine for a Linux newbie, the distros aren't that big and chances are you won't be installing that much stuff as you begin to get your feet wet.

Also - I'm kind of a rookie with linux. In fact, I've never used it, but I'm going to be studying it this year and I figured I'd pick it up and get acquianted with it. With Windows, I'm very familiar with it, and I understand the whole lineup - 95, 98, ME, XP, Vista, etc. What's it like with Linux? What's the latest version? Where do I get it? Is NewEgg a good place to order it since I'll already be ordering the HDD to run Linux from there?

Yeah, as the user above stated, do NOT buy Linux. You can donwload it for free. Since you are new to Linux, I'd suggest using something like Redhat or SUSE. If you plan on using it for your desktop, I would go with SUSE 10 or higher. It's very, very, very easy to install, almost Windows-like. In fact, I almost would recommend against it if you're trying to get a real concept of how linux works, because it includes configuration tools which make it very easy to run desktop linux for a novice. However, it is STILL linux, and all the nifty utilities still modify the underlying .conf files, so it might be a good starting point.

It's also available for no charge here.

Only thing I can see being a pain is the fact that GTA San Andreas won't be able to run in Linux. Anybody ever run into this?

There are some Windows emulators which run in Linux which you can run some Windows applications on, games are tricky, though. I don't really use Linux as a desktop, more as a backend app server, so I'm not really sure if GTA will run under Cedega or WINE. I doubt it.

You can always dual-boot with Windows and Linux on the same PC. Just boot to Windows when you want to play your games, and boot into Linux when you want to study.

[Greg]

...so I'm not really sure if GTA will run under Cedega or WINE. I doubt it.

People have gotten it to work, but it can be difficult. I've tried it myself, and I have sort of hit a wall

And (correct me if I am wrong, anyone) it would make more sense to format the extra drive as FAT rather than NTFS so Linux can handle it easier.

[jmhill1976]

Originally posted by Greg
People have gotten it to work, but it can be difficult. I've tried it myself, and I have sort of hit a wall

And (correct me if I am wrong, anyone) it would make more sense to format the extra drive as FAT rather than NTFS so Linux can handle it easier.

That's true, and probably more efficient if he's going to spend most of his time operating under Linux on a dual-boot system. However, if he's already got Windows XP installed and is going to be installing Linux to dual-boot over it, his filesystem is most likely formatted with NTFS, as that is the default in WinXP.

[macdude425]

Yes, but out of the box FAT32 support is far superior to out of the box NTFS support. While the Linux NTFS project now has stable NTFS reading and writing down, he could do that, but it's not as yet part of the kernel or something you can just apt-get.

[jmhill1976]

Originally posted by macdude425
Yes, but out of the box FAT32 support is far superior to out of the box NTFS support. While the Linux NTFS project now has stable NTFS reading and writing down, he could do that, but it's not as yet part of the kernel or something you can just apt-get.

True. Still, if he has already got Windows installed and wants to dual boot to Linux without re-installing, his Windows drive is most likely already NTFS formatted. And it's going to be a lot easier, faster, and less hazardous to existing data to add in NTFS functionality to Linux than to attempt to convert an existing NTFS partition to FAT32 ...

[Law]

Yea I agree, for someone who is not too familiar with Linux you should start off with openSUSE 10.1 (current stable version). YAST should help you get started on configuring the OS to meet your need, Personal Setting is like the control panel for Windows. openSUSE 10.1 can read NTFS, you just have to enter the correct syntax in fstab and create a directory in /mnt for those file. Then you enter “mount -a -t ntfs” and it will automatically mount the ntfs device listed in the fstab file.

To write to NTFS I suggest having a look at http://www.linux-ntfs.org/

[Jayce]

ignore this