Member Avatar for tnvkrishna

hii everyone
I bought a new laptop and want to install both windows and suse.
But i'm not able to decide between xp and vista.
I would only use windows only if a certain work is simply not possible with suse (in a convenient way)
heard that vista consumes huge space .... right.(should i allow it only for my little usage of windows?)
At present i have only a dummy os on my laptop.

Could you suggest the process to install them (or please post a link which explains the same).

core2duo 1.83ghz
160gb hdd
2gb ram

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by jbennet

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Picking XP or Vista really comes down to what Windows-only apps or device drivers you actually need, and how much fuss you want with partitions and drivers. If the Windows use is rare, running Windows as a virtual machine on top of openSUSE avoids repartitioning, gives snapshots/backups, and isolates an end-of-life Windows from your network. If native performance or direct hardware access is needed (games, some device drivers), a dual-boot is still valid — but check vendor driver support for your laptop model before committing to Vista or XP.

For a 160GB disk a practical split (example, adjust to your needs): Windows (NTFS) 30–50GB for light use, openSUSE root 12–20GB, /home 50–70GB for user files, and swap 2–4GB (make swap at least RAM-sized if you use hibernation). Use a live GParted or the installer’s partitioner to resize safely; keep a rescue or LiveCD/USB handy in case you need to recover the bootloader.

openSUSE 11’s installer usually detects Windows and adds a GRUB entry. If the Windows loader overwrites GRUB or a menu entry is missing, boot the openSUSE rescue environment or a LiveCD and reinstall/configure GRUB (openSUSE 11 uses GRUB legacy with /boot/grub/menu.lst). Chainloading the Windows boot manager from GRUB is also possible, as observed, if you prefer leaving Windows’ boot chain intact.

Building on points from , and : list the Windows applications and test them first (Wine AppDB or a quick VM), verify driver availability from the laptop vendor, and use virtualization when practical. Note both XP and Vista have reached end-of-support (XP: April 8, 2014; Vista: April 11, 2017) — for any Internet-connected Windows use consider a supported release or keep the Windows environment isolated.

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Member Avatar for tnvkrishna

Searching the internet I could find fair enough tutorials explaining how to do a dual boot.
But I am not able to get the answer to my question:which should i use xp or vista

Member Avatar for Selwyn

I would say hands down xp for compatabilty issues.
Also do you have both operating system disc xp and your linux distro.
Do you need to do a fresh install of both the operating systems (don't forget to save all files and folders)
I at the moment have a dual partition pc with xp & g os installed on it
Thank you
Dave

Member Avatar for jbennet

Yeah its important to have all os media and keys before you begin and to have your data backed up

always install linux AFTER windows.

xp likes being on the first primary partition, vista isnt so funny but still likes being on a primary.

dont install xp after vista

Dual booting is fairly painless now, i got grub to chainload the vista loader which can call the XP loader

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