Dual Booting

[Brynn]

Right, think its about time i installed a *nix on my system - im not a geek till i have it.

Whats the best OS?

Next question, how do i find out which drive my pc is booting from, as i seem to have two installs of windows on my pc

 

[anattic]

Right, think its about time i installed a *nix on my system - im not a geek till i have it.

So true...

Whats the best OS?

For fear of kicking off a Linux-*BSD holy war, I'll sit firmly on the fence and say that while I think FreeBSD is a thoroughly superior OS, it's not very easy on the beginner. I think one of the mainstream Linux distributions might be a better bet (just because the installers are a little more helpful). SuSE and Mandrake are both pretty easy to install.

Next question, how do i find out which drive my pc is booting from, as i seem to have two installs of windows on my pc

The easiest way is under Windows (assuming you use XP), go to Control Panel:Administrative Tools:Computer Management, then in the new window, click on the Storage : Disk Management item in the tree on the left hand side. That'll show you what's where.

Another alternative, if you don't want to install anything up-front, is to try Knoppix Linux. This is a live-CD version of Linux (i.e. it runs off the CD, rather than your hard drive). While not ideal for everything, its a good place to try stuff out safely.

 

[Brynn]

Im guessing in Computer Management that System is where it boots from?

 

[anattic]

Im guessing in Computer Management that System is where it boots from?

yep s'right

 

[Brynn]

Bloody pc - installed my operating system on one drive, and it boots from another.

Pissing M$

 

[Mellow]

Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > "start up and recovery" Settings

This section should enable you to choose which operating sytem you wish to boot from by default.