Considering a dual boot system

As many of you know, I had some computer problems a little over a week ago where I crashed my system by spilling a glass of water right onto the top of the hard drive. Of course I blogged about this while my hard drive was down and the obvious question came up. How?

I used a Live CD and ran a temporary Linux based operating system called KNOPPIX. It boots from your cd or dvd drive and is a fully functional and operational operating system.

When I was putting my next hard drive together, I briefly considered a dual boot system using a Macintosh OS called Leopard. Unfortunately, it is easier to put windows on a mac machine than to put MAC on a windows machine and that idea quickly went by the wayside.

However I have always liked Linux and there are numerous versions out there of it. I briefly messaged one the most educated Linux users I know and asked him what version of Linux did he think would make a nice system for a dual boot. He recommended Ubuntu, which ironically Dell Computers sells systems with this operating system already installed on it. This doesn't mean much, other than the fact I have a Dell and know the motherboard and all it's components would be compatible.

So this morning I downloaded Ubuntu (Free Operating System) and burned image to a CD. An image is an .iso file that a CD knows to read and could be a bootable CD or DVD. I was quick to find out, that Ubuntu initially boots to a live CD like knoppix or unlike knoppix can be installed as part of a permanent primary or secondary bootable operating system.

I am currently using ubuntu and familiarizing myself with it as I blog this, and am probably going to install it as a bootable secondary operating system in the near future.

It is more stripped down than Knoppix (It runs from a DVD in it's larger version which I also have) and does not have all the extra stuff that I probably wouldn't use to begin with. It does however have most if not all of the knoppix features that I do use and like, such as a fully functional 2.3 version of Open Office and a few other programs I use. It is a much more stripped down version of Linux, but the stuff it doesn't have is the stuff I wouldn't use. No C++ emacs programing software or network administrator tools like knoppix has contained within it.