Installing Linux and Windows (Dual Installation)

A computer system can have more then one operating system. These operating system can be installed in a single hard disk or in double hard disk separately. To boot these types of  system is called dual booting. Each operating system uses its own hard drive or disk partition liberally.

In this part we will tell you a brief  overview about how to install Linux with windows operating system. 

For installing Linux on existing window platform, first must create hard disk partition by using partitioning software also set the proper partition types for your Linux while it is needed during Linux installation, other wise the hard disk may be corrupt or can not get the successful Linux installation. No  new partitions should be held during installation.

In the case of  installing Linux on Windows 9x or Windows ME platform, you can not define partitions during the Windows installation. So install Windows first and then install  Linux from any Linux distribution while if you are installing Linux on the Windows NT or  Windows 2000, you can mount partitions of a specific size for Windows, leave enough free space (approx. 1024 cylinders space) that is not partitioned or formatted on the hard drive to install Red Hat Linux. In the older system must leave 1024 cylinder(528 MB) to prevent the overlapping and corrupting the hard disk. 

Installing Red Hat Linux on Windows platform

As the window has installed on the hard disk and there are enough disk space for installing Linux along with its open source software, the following process goes on. The difference in the installing process is only in the hard disk partition and configuring the boot loader, rest step is same as written in the Installationprocess.shtml. So here we are giving the process of only Disk partition and configuring the boot loader. 

Disk Partitioning

In the Linux installation there are two more partition besides windows. The first partition is for running Linux as an operating system and the second partition is for application software, it is larger portion of partition and the previous one is smaller. 

There are two types of  partitioning option. 

Automatic Partitioning.

In the automatic partitioning, selection of  automatic partition option use existing free space and leave the Windows partitions which was earlier done during the installation of  Windows. 

Manual partitioning with Disk Druid.

For partitioning of  hard disk manually, partitioned the hard disk without deleting the existing Windows partitions with the help of  Disk Druid.

Boot Loader

As you have already installed Windows as an operating system and want to install Linux on the same hard disk then installed Grub not MBR. For installing grub, select Configure Advance Boot Loader options and install it to first sector of  boot partition. For this:   

Select "Use GRUB as the boot loader".
Select Install Boot Loader record on "...First sector of  boot partition".
After finishing the Fedora Core 6 installation, reboot in.

Configuring the Boot Loader

As Boot Loader Installation screen appears in Linux installation process, select  Boot Loader  to install. 3rd-party boot loader such as System Commander or Partition Magic can be used  to boot both Linux and Windows. Some distribution of  Linux e.g. Fedora Core 6 does not support alternate boot loaders.

The Fedora Core 6 Linux installation program will usually detect Windows and automatically configure the boot loader (GRUB) to boot either Linux or Windows. This can be seen on the boot loader screen of the installation program. An entry named DOS appears in the list of operating systems to boot. 

All the later method is similar to the step of  installing Fedora Core 6. 

For more detail visit : http://www.roseindia.net/linux/fedora-core-6/index.shtml

Post-Installation

After the completion of installation whenever you start the computer a screen appears from the boot loader giving the option to choose either Linux to boot into Fedora Core 6 or DOS to boot into Windows.