[MJM]

So I've decided to do a dual boot on my new laptop (Toshiba A200-28P). One reason being that I need it for my final year project. I've never previously run dual boot, always had Win on my laptop and used the Linux labs at CS, but they run CentOS and I don't really like it that much (and I've used Ubuntu previously on a very poor PC at home though I didn't install that).
Anyway I cannot be hanging out in those shitty labs every day so I've decided I'm going to need both (keeping Vista for gaming purposes), but do have a few questions though:

Where can I check if my hardware is compatible with linux / where are drivers available? Or should I just go for it and hope for the best.

I will need to access certain data from both OSs, so should I have a third partition for data? What format should it be so both can read and write effortlessly? I know Linux has come a long way with NTFS recognition and writing, but I somehow still don't trust it.
The Toshiba comes in really odd partitions (two 92s and one 2GB) and I definately want to change that so that I ideally have 100GB or so just for data and can split the rest between the OS. This way I won't ever really have space issues. I've lived with 20GB for some time on XP, so I think I will be able to handle 40.
Short injection here - I've never had an OEM OS before... does it let me partition the HDD as I want or will it try to recreate the same setup? I've got some disc, but who knows what that is, seems to be just for recovery :s

I can't think of anything else really. I've used linux plenty and I've read up on how the whole dual booting should work, it's just that there doesn't seem to be much on interaction between the two.
I've worked a lot with the Knoppix live cd as well as CentOS so that's not much of an issue.

[MJM]

Sorry, but another question, if I install Ubuntu in the normal matter for the dual boot, is it possible to use VMWare to boot it?

[Cew27]

hardware should be fine, just tell us your wireless card. thats the hardest usually.
linux can read and write to ntfs but bot win and lin can r/w fat 32 and 16 so either of them would do
also no if you install normally you wont be able to get vmware to boot that partition. (if i were you id use virtualbox)
when you install things using virtualbox it creates an image, this is a single file that holds the whole os.

[MJM]

According to Toshiba's site and the device manager it's a "Intel® Wireless WiFi™ Link 4965AGN".

FAT32 it is then.

See, the thing is I need to be able to access Linux through booting, but every now and then may need quick access to things. I could live without it if absolutely necessarily.

[Cew27]

i have that wireless, supported in the new kernel so your ok there. and quick acess to what

[MJM]

Linux! The thing is that I am coding in a programming environment only available for Linux (GODI) as well as some other things that don't run well in Windows... if I have an idea to fix a bug or something I'd like to do it right away, even if I am gaming.

[MJM]

Another quick question, should I get the 64bit version of Ubuntu or should I just stick with 32bit even though the processor can do 64? Can't seem to find anything about compatibility issues like Windows does though I'd expect it to no where near as bad.

[Cew27]

for less than 4 gig of ram 32 bit if you have 4 or more 64.
be thankful you are programming on linux. if you have a problem you can actually find out what went wrong

[MJM]

Originally Posted by Cew27

for less than 4 gig of ram 32 bit if you have 4 or more 64.
be thankful you are programming on linux. if you have a problem you can actually find out what went wrong

I can do that on Windows as well. It's called a debugger :s
It's just that GODI is only on Linux and some of the other stuff I'm probably going to be using don't run efficeintly on Windows.

Either system I can find out what's wrong.

I just think it's pathetic that you cannot virtualise an installed system. Is there any way to create an image from the HDD to virtualise it?

[Cew27]

a debugger is for programming not for telling you why explorer crashed 10 times in a row .........