Hi all

I am now at the point were I want to try Linux but have a few questions.

I am going to need to keep windows7 running for a while at least.

It has been sometime since I made such a drastic change. Last time, it was when I trialled release candidate w7 on a vista OS and I if I remember correctly I used shrink volume to create enough space for a new partition and dual booted.

Can you tell me if this would be the best way to go about installing Linux on a separate partition, whilst keeping w7 on the other?

Any advice you can give to a Linux virgin would be greatly welcomed.

Dual booting always worked great for me.

Some people also run Linux on Windows through a virtual machine which may have some advantages for them.

The more common Linux distros often have an inbuilt functionality on install that automatically creates a partition for the new OS so you don't have to create a new partition beforehand.

Yes, you should have different partitions for different operating systems.

I run a dual boot system like many others here and boot up Windows less and less without being forced, it's the most relaxed transition and going on for 2.75 years now.
Yep, shrinking a partition, creating a seperate one for Linux and afterwards letting it create a dual-boot setup is the way to go if you already got Windows installed, Linux Mint even does it automatically if you install it on a prepared partition and it detects another operating system somewhere (I don't really know how easy it is to do the other way round). I'd advise to create at least two partitions for Linux though, one for the OS and a SWAP partition for additional virtual RAM, having a third one with /home is the most elegant solution since it gives you the freedom of formatting and changing your distribution anytime without losing your profile or having to move files around but I'm still only using two paritions for Linux, one for Windows and one for various data.

If you're installing the current Mint 17.2 on a system that is already in use (like having Win7 installed), don't use the first option of the installer, just don't!
Use the one without the red text in any case and choose where Linux is supposed to be placed so that nothing gets overwritten.

Many thanks to all who have replied, +1 to useful answers.

I have another question, which build?

A blue gives this answer in the faq, are there any major differences? :-

Which Linux distributions do you support?
We test and support our games on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and Mint 17 LTS.

I am a going into this as a novice, can you tell me in a nutshell, if gog are supporting 2 builds which do you use and why?

I will be using primarily based on gaming.

Backup important data. Just to be safe. Just in case.
Once i was installing ubuntu on a hdd, where windows and ubuntu (older version) were installed.
So, ubuntu saw that i have an older version installed and proposed me to use an automated update (or automated install, cant remember). I was hoping it will format old linux partition and install itself there, but i was wrong. Whole HDD was formatted. Everything was lost.

So, backup important data.

edit: added info

I'm using Mint 17 now, have been Using Mint 15 and 16 long before GoG was willing to support Linux, had no problem with Mint 16 playing GoG games either.
The main reasons for using this distribution is user/noob friendlyness, compatibility with Debian and Ubuntu packages (which are usually very easy to use) and more stability than what I experienced on other peoples systems with Ubuntu. The nice design of the MATE edition is just the icing on the cake.

I never managed to properly install the better ATI drivers, so gaming on Linux has just recently become really great with my new Geforce GTX750. *signed*

I backup all the internal data before making any crucial change on my system after I got burned too.
Having at least one HDD docking station handy and keeping important files on external drives is always wise.

You can't go wrong with either of them. :)
There's not so many differences between them but if you're coming from windows then Linux Mint might be more to your liking than standard Ubuntu.
You should watch some short showcases on current Ubuntu and Linux Mint to see what would suit you better.

It's not completely necessary to create another partition.

When I started experimenting with Linux, I used Wubi.

Wubi is a windows program that installs Ubuntu (the most popular Linux distribution) as a program in windows. But, it doesn't run in windows.

After it's installed, you now have a dual boot system. It creates a large file and puts Ubuntu in that. But, if your windows partition goes down, it takes Ubuntu with it.

If you want to remove it, you just "uninstall" it from Windows and it puts your boot menu back to normal.

I wouldn't suggest it long term, but it's a great way to try out Linux without having to repartition your hard drive.

Then again, I hate the newer versions of Ubuntu (which changed after I used wubi), so you might be better off just experimenting with a bootable dvd of Linux Mint.

How do you feel about the non-Unity Ubuntu-distros? Kubuntu etc.

Thank you all again.

I will look into Mint as my first try.

I will let you know how I get on.

As long as it still functions like it did without Unity, probably fine. I switched over to a lightweight openbox distro a long time ago though because I found KDE and Gnome too slow.

One thing that may be worth trying is trying out the Live CD for a bit which is part of most distros I believe. Can also create a bootable USB which persists your session. I know this is a feature of LiLi USB Creator at least.


As for dual boot...I can only speak of the Ubuntu distros, but they seem to do a decent enough job of doing what is needed for dual boot. I have only tried it with a new Windows install with a partition ready for Linux though. But it recognizes you have Windows and will ask if you want to install alongside or wipe it altogether.