linux and windows together? or windows alone?

[Guest]

hello
i just want to say that am not an expert at all in these subjects but i
tried to do some research and i think now i can ask proper questions.
Now i have two partitions in my laptop (dell inspiron 1100, 30gigas HD,
pentium 4) for linux and windows (15 gigas e/o), these partitions were set by
a very knowledgeable guy.

This guy told me that my laptop wouldnt support the new windows versions in
5 years therefore my laptop would be useless; however if i used linux my
laptop would be operable for many years, and i could use simulation programs
that would allow me to open different kind of files normally used on windows
(xls, doc, pdf files etc)
Questions:
1. is that statement true?

Convinced by that statement i decided to let him install both systems, and i
started learning the basics for linux, apparently my friend installed a very
complicated version (the one he always used and it was a variation of GNOME)
of that system cuz i couldnt do anything by myself (while using the kernel)
and all the time i had to ask him. Well all of the sudden he went back to
Denmark and i rarely used linux, later i had a problem with my XP and i had
to reinstall it again and i losed the option to choose from which O/S to
start the booting, now it starts in windows all the time(but i know linux is
there using the 15 gigas partition).

I've been a very desorganized and lazy laptop user and didnt renew my mcafee
antivirus nor its firewall that came installed in my laptop and now my lap is
full of shit , not to mention that i stupidly avoided downloading the SP2. So
again am gonna do the radical solution of reinstall everything from scratch
but this time am trying to follow some of the recomendations you give in this
forum (like using AVG as antivirus and probable the trend micro firewall).

Because of this start over i'd like to ask you few more questions so i can
decide better if installing both linux and windows (reducing the linux
partition) or just have XP:

2. is there a version of linux recommended for beginners like me? am not a
comp science guy but i try my best to do research (at least now that am
taking some time off from university) and learn about it.

3. if i decide to dump linux, can you suggest me links where i can find
technical information (or if you wanna tell me here on this forum i'd
appreciate) about how to format the linux partition and resize the windows
partition to take all the 30 gigas of my HD? if i resize windows partition
can i loose all the documentation in "my documents"? from the first time i
reinstalled everything i discovered "my documents" was untouched. Still am
gonna do back up of all my info on the laptop

4. if i decide to keep linux and get it operational ? can you suggest me
links about how still resize the linux partition? i want to reduce it to 5
gigas cuz 15 gigas its too much disk space wasted (specially if am not gonna
store my main info there, i;ll do that in windows). Can i still lose info in
"my documents"?

thanks for your answers
Roberto

 

[Guest]

Yup try Kubuntu, if u go to the ubuntu web stie you can dont and has good
Gnome interfaces.

well linux doesn't really require too much of system hardware any as to
compared to like windows. err 30gb lol, thats ok for both windows but
acutally u need bigger for windows if you tend on installing other
appilcations. for linux 15gs is ok since the swap file doesn't really need
that much (the bigger the better).

well if it was me i'll just get a new laptop with better specs, then to run
both on if not run linux on your dell laptop

 

[S.Sengupta]

To which post have you replied?And it's not a Linux newsgroup either.

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[NobodyMan]

Yup try Kubuntu, if u go to the ubuntu web stie you can dont and has good
Gnome interfaces.

well linux doesn't really require too much of system hardware any as to
compared to like windows. err 30gb lol, thats ok for both windows but
acutally u need bigger for windows if you tend on installing other
appilcations. for linux 15gs is ok since the swap file doesn't really need
that much (the bigger the better).

well if it was me i'll just get a new laptop with better specs, then to run
both on if not run linux on your dell laptop

Were you answering somebody's question/post? Since you included no
relevant parts of that post, nobody has any idea what you are trying
to say.

 

[Jeff]

Were you answering somebody's question/post? Since you included no
relevant parts of that post, nobody has any idea what you are trying
to say.

Good. I thought I was the only one who could not figure it out.

 

[Paul Knudsen]

This guy told me that my laptop wouldnt support the new windows versions in
5 years therefore my laptop would be useless;

This guy predicts the future? Ask him how Google stock will do in the
next five years.

Seriously, that may be true about new OS's, but so what? Win XP
should continue to work just fine, and will still be supported--After
all Win 2000 is five years old and that's still supported.

however if i used linux my
laptop would be operable for many years, and i could use simulation programs
that would allow me to open different kind of files normally used on windows
(xls, doc, pdf files etc)

Use Linux if you want but for a better reason than what you were told.