Linux dual boot Virgin - help!

[Ruggerbugger]

I'm getting heartily sick of patching Windows every 5 minutes, so I'm thinkng about dual-booting with Linux. As I'm only doing this as an experiment, I'd need a free distro. Also, as I know very little about Linux, I'd prefer something with a nice graphical installer and GUI, but one that will ease me into the Linux way of doing things. This might be a long shot, but it would be nice if it would properly detect the hardware in my sig.

I would be putting this alongside and existing Windows installation, which has two users (me and my computer-clueless Dad). I therefore don't want to start with a complete reinstall.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks

[directhex]

fedora core 3 or suse 9.2 might take your fancy, i'm pretty sure both can resize existing partitions down, and they'll both detect all your kit (though no 3d on the radon without extra drivers from ati which are unpleasant to get working)

defrag & scandisk before resizing partitons!

[njm106]

I am using FC3 on my laptop and I would highly recommend it, I haven't tried to dual boot with it though but dual booting is suppose to be fairly simple these days however I would recommend that you backup your important data before you start resizing partitons etc.

[Norky]

Try Knoppix first? I installed it onto a cheap external harddrive (comparable speeds to a normal harddrive), works a treat, I use it for some programming and network diagnostics!

[yamangman]

A later version of SuSE, 7.0 - 9.2, can't see why you wouldn't go for 9.2 however

It may or may not resize your partitions for you, and as ever if you have two HDD's, Win on one and 'nix on the other is generally a great way to handle it.

[Ruggerbugger]

I have a copy of SuSE 9.1 on a PCF DVD, putting it on a second drive occurred to me today. Presumably a boot loader would still recognise both systems?

[yamangman]

Yea, you can customise a GRUB bootloader upon installation, it's great and very easy to use.

[mattjgalloway]

Yeh go for SuSE in my opinion - nice and easy to install. That or Mandrake 10.1. I've had a little experience in both and can recommend them. As directhex says you won't get any 3D on the ATI out of the box because ATI Linux support sucks. Hence my switch to nVidia next time!

[JohnS]

Try Knoppix first? I installed it onto a cheap external harddrive (comparable speeds to a normal harddrive), works a treat, I use it for some programming and network diagnostics!

Knoppix CD will also allow u to use Linux without installing it which will give you a peak at what youll be up against if you find it to your liking install it to your hard drive but in the meantime just boot from the knoppix cd

[DsW]

I installed SuSE 9.1Pro on a dual-boot (GRUB), dual-hdd setup and it was really easy. It can also backup your MBR so you can restore your original boot setup whenever you want as well. Definitely recommended.

ATI recently updated their Linux drivers and, whilst I couldn't get them working before, they installed without any hassle this time. Worth giving them another try if you've had problems before.

[Ruggerbugger]

Thanks DSW, Linux driver support for my 9800Pro is what's holding me up.