18 replies to this topic

[cakka]

How to setup 2 OS in 1 PC ?
It is need a software to do this ?

Thanks

[WingedPanther]

It depends on the OS's. Most Linux installation disks support it. Grub and Lilo are the actually programs that enable it.

[BlaineSch]

I have two XP Pro's on this computer. I had to use a Live Windows Disc to manage my partitions however. Windows does not seem to like it much lol

[Hignar]

As others have said it depends on which OS's you want to install. Most Linux distros will allow you to install along side an existing OS and chose between them when you boot up using either grub or lilo.

Windows will let you boot between multiple versions of Windows but doesn't play nicely with Linux. I believe vista (and presumably 7) will allow you add a linux install to it's boot loader but I've never tried it. If possible install windows first and then Linux if those are the OS's you want to use as this will mean that the linux installation will (usually) detect the existing OS and add it to the bootloader.

There are other options that are more independent of the host OS's. I tried GAG a couple of years ago and it works well enough. Probably a little more complicated to set up than if you use an OS's default bootloader but definitely a viable option if you have, for example, two versions of XP you want to be able to chose between.

If you want any additional help/info you'll have to be more specific about what you are trying to achieve.

[cakka]

i am using windows vista... can i do that ?

[Hignar]

What do you want as your second OS?

If it's linux then yes. It's no problem at all.

If you want another version of Vista then is should still be possible, but it's not something I've ever tried to do.

[TcM]

Depends what OS you are planning to run with Vista... actually you can install whatever you want but depending on the os, you might need a boot manager... so before installing anything you better be sure or you will end up not being able to boot vista.

[cakka]

i want to run Linux Ubuntu & Windows XP beside my vista ...
please tell me how to do that :)

thanks

[Hignar]

It's important to do things in the right order.

First you'll want to install XP along side vista. This messes up the vista boot loader so you'll have to fix that so you can dual boot between XP & Vista. This guide looks reasonable. During the step where you partition your hard drive you may as well create a partition for linux as well. You should format this partition as either ext3 or ext4 depending on how up to date gparted is. This partition won't be (natively) available to windows, so don't panic when it doesn't show up.

Once you're successfully dual booting XP & Vista you can install Ubuntu on the spare partition. Ubunutt will set up the boot loader for you but may only pick up on the vista bootloader which is why we needed to add XP to the vista bootloader. If XP doesn't appear on the bootloader menu when you reboot then you'll have to select the vista option which should then load the vista bootloader allowing you to chose either XP or Vista.

Please backup ALL important information before you can begin. It's all fairly straight forward, but there are various points during the process where you'll be formatting various parts of your hard drive and it only takes one mistake to wipe your original Vista install.

[cakka]

how about the virtualization ?
what do you thing if i am using vmware ?

thanks

[Hignar]

If you want to run them in virtual machines then there's no issue with dual booting or partitioning. You can set up two new virtual machines and install XP and Ubuntu on them. Their "hard drives" will be saved as files where ever you choose to save them.

While this is the safer option if you intend using XP or Ubuntu a lot then you might find virtual machines a little slow espescially if you want to run anything that's graphically intensive. You also need enough memory to be able to run both the guest and host OS. If you have 2GB or less of RAM and are running Vista as your host OS then you may struggle.

[cakka]

thanks i have 4 GB RAM :)