RE: Installing Debian alongside Windows Vista?
Zachary Uram wrote:
> I have a 500GB disk which has Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
> ... Can someone please tell me exactly what I must do to shrink the
> Vista install by 50% and install Debian squeeze (64bit AMD) on the
> 250GB partition that will be freed
> ... (it has 4GB ram) ...
I did dual boot ~10 years ago. Then I discovered hard drive mobile
docks and bought a second drive. Then as I bought newer computers, I
put Linux on some and Windows on others. Now there is free (as in beer
and/or as in freedom) virtual machine software for Windows, Linux, and
others.
Virtualization is very liberating -- you can backup/restore VM images
with copy/paste, zip/unzip, etc., you can version control VM images, you
can deploy VM images to different/multiple VM hosts, etc.. Best of all,
you can experiment with impunity -- a shutdown/restore/start cycle takes
only minutes. Contrast that to imaging/re-imaging a Vista/Linux
dual-boot hard drive (a non-trivial problem) or re-installing from
scratch and re-activating Vista (2 activations by Internet, then you
need to telephone Microsoft and convince them you're not a pirate).
Virtualization saves tremendous amounts of time, effort, and expense.
I recommend that you leave Windows alone, download/install the VM
technology of your choice (VMWare, Microsoft, Sun, etc.), and
download/run or build/run a Debian VM.
HTH,
David
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