[shuaibao]

Hi, I'm looking into a *nix, preferably Red Hat Linux 9, I was wondering,
I have a P4 Dell with 40 gigs on it, tbe 38*, 15 gigs left, that has windows running on it. I want to use that computer (only one with internet) to install RedHat...
Problems:
1. Partition...wtf? Can't partition the rest of my NTFS drive.
2. Can't erase/format hard drive: Dad gets aggravated (dude, you've got your XP Pro laptop right there....) and I have some Macromedia Flash work on there.
3. Can't get a new computer, too expensive.
....or....

First thing...which is better, Red Hat Linux 9, or Fedora Core 4?
And: Where can I find a really cheap $75-125 computer with no monitor and just bare-bones P4 with a decent harddrive? with no windows installed

Thanks lots,
Shuai

[popey]

You could add a second hard drive and dual boot or you could use a linux live distro. Both cheaper than another box.

[Rei Ayanami]

It would be hardstrectched to find a P4 and a decient hd barebones computer but it still may be possible I would check around the area localy. That would be your best bet if nothing else I would suggest just puttin togather your own from say newegg or zipzoomfly that will be much cheeper then buying a new comp. As for Fedora 4 and Red Hat 9 they are both very similar Red Hat might have more support if you are unexperenced to linux.

[jakec]

Look Mate,

First of all I feel your pain, partitioning linux and windows is A real pain (windows doesn't like to share)

Secondly Your gonna find it really hard to find A barebones P4, I've tried!

I reccomend using A live distro, while looking for Another machine.... Somthing like Ubuntu 5.04 or Mandrake 9.2 Live....

Jake

[Tyler1989]

Never I recommend Red Hat or Fedora Series. As for Flash you may continue using Flash on Linux just download the linux verson and be sure to have a copy of your work handy. As for partitioning you can leave it the same and use some remaining free space.

[furtivefelon]

ah, use partition magic (you have to buy it used.. as apparently macfee or something bought it.. hope they don't ruin one good product for windows :|)

it will allow you to seperate a partition already with data on there (risk is small, but there is some inherent risk :|)

[shuaibao]

Thanks for the help...what I am deciding is a $1000 acer laptop w/ 1gb ram and 100gb HD, and just try to use Disk Druid to partition with Windows.

Thanks everyone!

Or wait. should I kill Windows? hmm...it's a 64-bit AMD Turion 64 (for $1000? sick, eh?), so I guess I'll keep it...

[TheHeadFL]

I think anyone starting out in Linux should have a totally separate hard drive for booting Linux. When I first started, I used to swap the IDE cable rather than screwing with partitioning. (This was in the days of Win98 though) The main benefit of this, though, is that you can't ruin your Windows this way....

... Which can happen. The first *nix I ran was Mandrake something, and I couldn't get it working right back then with my network cards (this kind of thing wouldnt be a problem anymore really) so I then went to FreeBSD. Within about an hour of being online with FreeBSD, I got rooted, since FreeBSD at the time still by default had the ubiquitous WU-FTPD, which had a well known exploit. Unbeknownst to me, I got "h4x0r3d" in like no time flat. If I was on my Windows disk, I would've lost a lot more data.

[Iron_Cross]

To save yourself some time and headache, buy a new hdd and use that as the linux partition. Trust I know
...
:-P