SmalekTF
December 2nd, 2012, 12:25 AM
Hello community,
I am in need of using Linux at work and currently I have a laptop with Windows XP on it. I would like to install Linux to work along with XP in a dual boot setup. I have already used Linux on the laptop via VMWare Player, however I have come to find that this method can also limit me. Due to this case I decided to do this installation.
I tried installing Xubuntu on an older personal laptop that I was going to give away anyway, and going through installation it became stuck during disk partitioning. After a long while I decided to just reboot the machine, of course this caused issues with accessing Vista on that machine. That's fine that PC was expendable.
Having said this I CANNOT lose my current XP setup. Of course I plan to make backups, boot CD,...etc. I am even going to purchase ghost image software to backup an entire image. Yes I am paranoid about this. I have a lot of software/configuration that I don't want changed. Data can be backed up and that's fine, but setting up tools, making special configuration to tools, and setting many drivers can take a while...etc.etc.
I cannot afford that nightmare. Of course a hard drive failure/crash can always bring this, but that's not my direct doing :P
OK, what is my best approach in doing this? Of course the Xubuntu setup failure has raised alarms for me. I am wondering what the advice of you good folks is for me :)
If there is a chance of something going wrong and I cannot recover my XP in it's exact state, I would rather purchase a separate laptop just for Linux. But I think that would be too much!
I have 2 weeks to do this since my next project will likely require me to use a Linux OS for my work.
Anyway, thank you for any feedback on this :)
I am in need of using Linux at work and currently I have a laptop with Windows XP on it. I would like to install Linux to work along with XP in a dual boot setup. I have already used Linux on the laptop via VMWare Player, however I have come to find that this method can also limit me. Due to this case I decided to do this installation.
I tried installing Xubuntu on an older personal laptop that I was going to give away anyway, and going through installation it became stuck during disk partitioning. After a long while I decided to just reboot the machine, of course this caused issues with accessing Vista on that machine. That's fine that PC was expendable.
Having said this I CANNOT lose my current XP setup. Of course I plan to make backups, boot CD,...etc. I am even going to purchase ghost image software to backup an entire image. Yes I am paranoid about this. I have a lot of software/configuration that I don't want changed. Data can be backed up and that's fine, but setting up tools, making special configuration to tools, and setting many drivers can take a while...etc.etc.
I cannot afford that nightmare. Of course a hard drive failure/crash can always bring this, but that's not my direct doing :P
OK, what is my best approach in doing this? Of course the Xubuntu setup failure has raised alarms for me. I am wondering what the advice of you good folks is for me :)
If there is a chance of something going wrong and I cannot recover my XP in it's exact state, I would rather purchase a separate laptop just for Linux. But I think that would be too much!
I have 2 weeks to do this since my next project will likely require me to use a Linux OS for my work.
Anyway, thank you for any feedback on this :)