From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 1 23:22:13 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CCEF16A4CE for ; Tue, 1 Mar 2005 23:22:13 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.scls.lib.wi.us (mail.scls.lib.wi.us [198.150.40.25]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C261A43D2F for ; Tue, 1 Mar 2005 23:22:12 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nalists@scls.lib.wi.us) Received: from [172.26.2.238] ([172.26.2.238]) by mail.scls.lib.wi.us (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j21NM9kA013080; Tue, 1 Mar 2005 17:22:09 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from nalists@scls.lib.wi.us) Message-ID: <4224F8F2.7000004@scls.lib.wi.us> Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 17:21:22 -0600 From: Greg Barniskis User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Larkin References: <20050301232235.7a9f7bbb@sparrow> In-Reply-To: <20050301232235.7a9f7bbb@sparrow> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: "questions@freebsd.org" Subject: Re: Dual boot with XP X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:22:13 -0000 David Larkin wrote: > I'm going to by a laptop with wondoze XP pre installed soon. > > The machine will have one IDE disk. > > Am I right in thinking that I can install FreeBSD also without having to re-install XP ? > > I"ve searched the mailing list and found info on how to achieve dual boot with multiple disks< but how do i go about this, which I guess is a common task ? > > Is there a tutorial out there in cyberspace somewhere ???? Jerry gave a pretty complete answer. I have two cents to throw in: Consider reinstalling Windows instead of futzing with shrinking the partition to make room for FreeBSD. No question that it can be done, but as noted it may cost you for some commercial partition mgmt. software for NTFS. But that's not my reason. The vendor is highly likely to load your laptop's installation of Windows with all kinds of unwanted cruft, including AOL and Earthlink dialers, scary automated "helper" software, and gawd knows what else. If you install Windows, you get to control it (to some small extent). Would you rather have to go and weed out the bloatware that you don't want, or would you rather build up a box from nothing, including only what you do want? The latter is more "the BSD way" and that's why I usually choose to reinstall Windows in these cases. You'll want to fire up Windows as delivered by the vendor at least once and poke around in it awhile, particularly if it comes with any "free" stuff you want, like an antivirus subscription or what not -- sometimes these installations come with serial numbers "embedded" by the vendor, that you must use to register the package before you'll be able to successfully reinstall them from CD after reinstalling Windows. -- Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator South Central Library System (SCLS) Library Interchange Network (LINK) , (608) 266-6348