hello and perhaps some help

Regina Woodard wrote:
> Hey everyone! My name is Gina or you can call me G-Dawg (that's my street
> name lol) As you can probably guess, I am a newbie to not only the list, but
> to Linux as well, hence why I actually subscribed. I've run into a problem
> and I'm hoping I can get some help.
> 
> About me - I've just started in a network class as per an IT degree with a
> concentration in networks, so in my previous class we did a paper about the
> different OS and I did one about Windows and Linux. That of course peaked my
> interest with Linux and finally, as of today, I suddenly needed to try this
> up and coming OS and so here I am!
> 
> Now, about my problem - it occured to me today that I didn't want to get rid
> of XP (which is what I'm running on my desktop), but yet I didn't really
> want to share my desktop with Linux either, for fear there may be a horrible
> clash that would happen (and crashing XP twice in one year is an all time
> high for me; I'd rather not make it three) So I came up with the idea to
> 'sample' Linux on my old hard drive from my Packard Bell (yeah, I know)
> However, I have run into problems.
> 
> I first went with the Suse 10 for Linux and ran into the problem that my
> network device could not be detected; I got that repeatedly. Now, I want to
> say it was because I downloaded the internet install at a work computer,
> burned the image to disk and brought it home. So I have taken the liberty of
> installing it on my desktop. Have yet to try it, though I think the outcome
> will be the same.

I've just installed SuSE 10 and Breezy on the same laptop (a new Acer 
Aspirt). Breezy as first and selected the seoond FAT32 (windows XP Home 
here) partition and resized it without drama. I've previously resized 
NTFS with Suse 9.x abd that was pretty trivial.

On my system, SuSE came out ahead on hardware recognition (it lead me 
through configuring wireless and the infernal modem). I think Breezy's a 
little better for beginners once it's installed.

Typically but not always, recent Linux distributions will find and 
configure everything, and not require post-installation of special 
drives. Major hardware exceptions are software modems and some wireless 
devices: the story there various with distribution and specific hardware.

In your case, until you have more confidence in what you're doing I 
suggest a disk caddy. They allow you to exchange hard drives (while the 
poer is disconnected please), and there is no possibility of either OS 
borking the other.