Hello. I received a free linux software from ubuntu. I am afraid to download this software, because I want to keep my window operating system. Is there a way if I install this software, that I can switch to window and linux any time I want? Since I have only ONE hard drive.

If you have enough free space you could try partitioning, some tools will format the whole drive though so try and find one that only partitions the sectors you want.

It is possile to dual boo using theabove method and ubuntu is a very good OS for windows intergration. I run ubuntu solely now on my computer ( I still have my windows hard drive but it never gets used)

Jamie

I definitely have good enough free spaces. 203GB free spaces available. So, is it possibility to switch window and linux just by click a button or something?

You wont be able to switch by clicking a button, But when you boot your computer you will be given the option to boot to windows or linux.

You could just boot to linux and you wont have to install anything.
Just burn the ISO as an image using nero or something similar, Then set your bios to look in the CD draw for an OS before looking on the hard drive, Put the disk in the CD tray and reboot. It will boot to linux. And then to go back to windows just take out the disk and reboot. When it doesn't find a disk in the draw it will boot from the HD.

Not really, no.
Free space in your disk don't count, as linux need it's own partitions.

But, if you want to try linux, ubuntu should be able to run direct from the cd without installing anything.
Simply put the disc in your drive, reboot your computer, and it should boot in a "live" session, not writing anything on the hard disk.

Give it a try...

I tried writing it to CD once. It didn't work. I guess I did something wrong! Trust me to do that

The file needs to be burned as an image. You probably just copied the file to disk rather than burn it as an image. Most people do that. I done it 7 times in a row when i first started trying linux.

Originally Posted by stOx

You wont be able to switch by clicking a button, But when you boot your computer you will be given the option to boot to windows or linux.

You could just boot to linux and you wont have to install anything.
Just burn the ISO as an image using nero or something similar, Then set your bios to look in the CD draw for an OS before looking on the hard drive, Put the disk in the CD tray and reboot. It will boot to linux. And then to go back to windows just take out the disk and reboot. When it doesn't find a dick in the draw it will boot from the HD.

Burn the iso as an image, then set my bios to look in the cd draw for an OS before looking on the hard drive. How can I do that? And I have nero.

I don't know about Nero but I do know that you should press F8 once the computer has started booting up to go to the boot menu and then choose to boot from CD when there

I haven't done it in a while, But just look around nero. There should be an option or a dialogue box where you can select how you want the info to be put on the disk. Select "image".

Here's how to set the boot priority, it may be different on different machines. just make sure that CD is before hard-drive.

You can switch the OS in one click. Really, it's not recommended because of course you have two OS's running therefore your memory would clog and processor would be hating it but if you have a nice Dual core 1.8Ghz+ or Single core 3.0GHz+ processor and AT LEAST 2 gigs of memory (this is if you're running XP) and AT LEAST 4 gigs of memory if you're running on Vista (this rule doesn't apply as much on Vista Home Basic because it doesn't include the Aero interface). But if you still want to do it install the latest Ubuntu Linux distribution (Fiesty Fawn), partition your disk correctly using PartitionMagic or any other good partition tool (PartitionMagic really is your only real choice) and make a partition using the Linux file system and then make a 2 gig swap partition or just make the Linux file system partition (at least 20 gigs) and allow Ubuntu to create the swap space when you install Ubuntu or allow Ubuntu to create both partitions by making unallocated space. One note there has been problems switching back some Linux partitions to FAT32, NTSF, or whatever Microsoft type partition you wish to use so really don't allocate too much space at first in case you uninstall Linux and have a problem later.
Next you'll need to install the Ubuntu program "Wine". I've never installed it so I don't know exactly how it works or where to get it (Google it) but basically it allows Linux to use Windows DLL's (the same as Linux libraries) and therefore execute many (not all) Windows programs. You have another option though. I saw on Youtube someone that had a Linux Window with XP inside of it. Pretty cool, eh? So when Window crashes you can just close the Window instead of restarting :P. What is this program called? No clue. Look on Youtube and search Ubuntu I guess. I've only been using Ubuntu Linux (with Beryl) for barely a month so I don't know too much about Linux but the point is that it is possible. Just going to be a painfully long and in all truths risky process.
I'm not sure how to help you any more but if you have any questions I'll try to answer them.

Originally Posted by stOx

The file needs to be burned as an image. You probably just copied the file to disk rather than burn it as an image. Most people do that. I done it 7 times in a row when i first started trying linux.

Thanks for that post!

I felt real stupid the first time since I did the same thing. Nero is not the easiest software to burn an ISO. It can be done. It is a bit confusing.

Originally Posted by Mattmaul1992

You can switch the OS in one click. Really, it's not recommended because of course you have two OS's running therefore your memory would clog and processor would be hating it but if you have a nice Dual core 1.8Ghz+ or Single core 3.0GHz+ processor and AT LEAST 2 gigs of memory (this is if you're running XP) and AT LEAST 4 gigs of memory if you're running on Vista (this rule doesn't apply as much on Vista Home Basic because it doesn't include the Aero interface). But if you still want to do it install the latest Ubuntu Linux distribution (Fiesty Fawn), partition your disk correctly using PartitionMagic or any other good partition tool (PartitionMagic really is your only real choice) and make a partition using the Linux file system and then make a 2 gig swap partition or just make the Linux file system partition (at least 20 gigs) and allow Ubuntu to create the swap space when you install Ubuntu or allow Ubuntu to create both partitions by making unallocated space. One note there has been problems switching back some Linux partitions to FAT32, NTSF, or whatever Microsoft type partition you wish to use so really don't allocate too much space at first in case you uninstall Linux and have a problem later.
Next you'll need to install the Ubuntu program "Wine". I've never installed it so I don't know exactly how it works or where to get it (Google it) but basically it allows Linux to use Windows DLL's (the same as Linux libraries) and therefore execute many (not all) Windows programs. You have another option though. I saw on Youtube someone that had a Linux Window with XP inside of it. Pretty cool, eh? So when Window crashes you can just close the Window instead of restarting :P. What is this program called? No clue. Look on Youtube and search Ubuntu I guess. I've only been using Ubuntu Linux (with Beryl) for barely a month so I don't know too much about Linux but the point is that it is possible. Just going to be a painfully long and in all truths risky process.
I'm not sure how to help you any more but if you have any questions I'll try to answer them.

Thanks for the help. I hope I can get all of this right way so any thing won't be mess up. And no, I am not going to save a lot of things on linux, I am just going to use linux to browser on the internet, then switch back to window for general purpose (chatting/watching movies/download stuff, etc).

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