Inquiry

[Bart Silverstrim]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Eberhard Roloff wrote:
> 
>> Rev. Jason Jay White wrote:
>>> *To Whom it may concern:*
>>> **
>>> *I had a friend recommend that I go to http://www.ubuntu.com and upgrade
>>> my desktop computer from Window XP to Linux* *OS**.
>> This is generally good advice. 
> 
> Though a little more hand-holding would no doubt have been appreciated :-) 
> Friends recommend Linux to friends - but they really shouldn't leave it at
> that!

Unless they won't be friends much longer :-)

> 
>> and if I do install it on my system will it wipe out my old
>>> operating system
>> No. It will free up some space from your harddisk and install there.
> 
> Or even better for the trepidacious new user, slip the new disk into the
> drive _while_ you're running Windows and the "Wubi" installer will create a
> file _inside_ your Windows partition and install Ubuntu into that.  Then
> you can boot into either without trouble.

If I might offer one more alternative to consider...look at 
VirtualBox.org's website for the Windows version of Virtualbox and 
install it virtually to see if you like it.

It's a lot easier to get rid of if you don't like it, it's more 
contained, and is great for testing as a sandbox so you can wipe it, 
copy it, do whatever without worrying about problems with your familiar 
environment.

It will be slower, it's not going to have your full computer's 
capabilities (glitches with graphics or sound or USB, although they 
should work, aren't guaranteed though). It's also going to take up more 
space since you have a "virtual hard drive" file. On the other hand you 
won't need to have a mixed environment within the virtual system since 
Ubuntu will think it has its' own computer to run in.

But if you want to dip your toes in and just learn it first VirtualBox 
is great for that.

-Bart