i have a window vista installed on my system.is it possible to run linux on my system without formatting.i still want to have current documents.my mial is bodingaboyiga@yahoo.com.thanks for helping.

i have a window vista installed on my system.is it possible to run linux on my system without formatting.i still want to have current documents.my mial is bodingaboyiga@yahoo.com.thanks for helping.

Sure...

On Start Menu, right click "Computer", click manage, then shrink the volume that Vista is installed on, and assign it a drive letter/name if prompted. After you format the new partition (doesn't matter what you convert it to since later on while installing Linux, you can change it to whatever file system you need) you can then install Linux on the new partition that you just created.

You didn't mention how big your drive is, but if storage space is a concern...
Linux applications tend to take up much less storage space than Windows' apps do....plus the entire drive can be accessed through Linux, so there's no need to shrink the Vista partition too much. Can probably get away with installing Linux on a 15-20GB partition so that you're not taking away too much from Vista; while still having a little headroom to add some Linux programs.

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