Advantages of Dual Boot?

[razorboy5]

Hi

Many ppl are suggesting Dual Booting since I am a gamer but wouldn't that be so much hassle and time wasted switching between? Also trying to locate folders and etc.

Never tried so dont have any experience in this field so what are some advantages?

[gn2]

There is only one advantage, which is the ability to run applications which will only run in Windows.

[Cyked]

If you don't need something from one OS or the other, then there is no benefit. If you do, then there is a benefit.

[HappyFeet]

wouldn't that be so much hassle and time wasted switching between?

Only if your time is so precious that you can't afford to wait ~1 minute to reboot. And if it is that precious, maybe you shouldn't be wasting time gaming in the first place.

Other than that, dual booting is a great option for gamers.

[voteforpedro36]

Well the advantage is you can run Windows and Linux on the same machine without reinstalling. It's honestly not that hard (unless you have never installed Windows or Linux) to set up.

[KiwiNZ]

Dual boot means the best of both worlds.

I don't dual boot on my Macs I use Parallels, it is great , I have Mac OS , Ubuntu and Win7 available on the machine with out needing to reboot.

[Ichtyandr]

For certain games that need good graphics and cannot run on Wine (and without which you cannot do) dual boot is the only way I guess.

I first installed Ubuntu for fun, so had a dual boot. Then figured out that Vista partition simply occupies a good chunk of my hard drive. I needed MS office to verify how certain documents appear when submitting stuff. So installed XP in Virtualbox with the Office and it calmly sits there without taking much space, and I do not have to restart the machine to verify how something looks in office.
Some lower graphic games also run in virtualbox (e.g. Heroes IV used to love it back in college years)

[Confuzius]

An easy way to get around losing all of your folders is to have a third partition for your data to reside on.
1 partition Windows (NTFS)
1 partition shared (NTFS)
1 partition Ubuntu (EXT4 - or whatever you prefer)
plus maybe a swap partition

That way you can dual boot and play your games in Windows but all of your documents, music and movies will be accesible by both operating systems on the shared partition.

The advantage of dual boot is the full power of each OS you want to use without virtualization.

[forrestcupp]

The main problem I've had with dual booting is that in Windows, I can do anything I can do in Linux and more. When I realized that, it gave me less incentive to ever even boot into Linux.

The only thing I can't do in Windows that I care about in Linux is run Cinelerra.

Not everyone thinks like I do, though. But in my case, it was going to be all or none.

[juancarlospaco]

You can run Legacy OS, like Windows XP. :)

[linuxguymarshall]

nowadays the only reason to dual boot is for games or faster boot times. I am in a tri-boot here on my netbook with CrunchBang Linux (general usage), xPUD Linux (4 seconds boot time) and Windows XP (Games and times when I absolutely have to use M$ office)

[Cyked]

When I was in college we attempted to install Windows 95, 98, ME, XP, Gentoo, redhat and whatever else we could get our hands on (3.1 even?). Never completed it. Our boss told us that partitioning a drive into 10 different pieces and installing multiple OSs wasn't a good use of our time.

[linuxguymarshall]

Our boss told us that partitioning a drive into 10 different pieces and installing multiple OSs wasn't a good use of our time.


you boss obviously does not understand the importance of geek cred.

[razorboy5]

well then if i install vista on my laptop dualbooting with ubuntu would it slow down my laptop or anything like that?

[linuxguymarshall]

well then if i install vista on my laptop dualbooting with ubuntu would it slow down my laptop or anything like that?

It would only be slow when you are using Vista. But that is a vista issue. It would not be anything to do with a dual boot. You can dual boot as much as you want and see no changes in speed or hardware. Just avalible drive space.