XP + GNU/Linux dual boot
I have three partitions. Partition 1 holds my XP Operating System. Partition 3 holds my installed programs and my data (reports, pictures, etc.). I want to install Debian GNU/Linux on Partition 2. What's the most minimal way to choose which OS I want to use upon computer startup? Like, I feel there's some file deep in my XP's system32 folder that I can change one line of text in to accomplish this.
Comments
EDIT: I take that back, I once had both Windows XP and Windows 98 on one computer. I'm pretty sure that was managed with the boot.ini, but I don't know how to do Linux.
Also, if this is your first foray into Linux I'm not sure if Debian would be your best bet, since it's intended for more advanced users. I'd recommend you go with Ubuntu instead, since it's based on Debian and therefore has pretty much everything that Debian does but it's also a fair bit easier to use. Still, whatever renders your vessel buoyant.
Wait, if you're installing Linux does this mean I'll have to start yammering on about Ron Paul now?
Also, I'm not installing Linux for ease of use, I'm installing it to become more intimate with Unix. I will rape boot.ini.
...
I just typed up a big spiel on the various generations of processor microarchitectures made by Intel from the 386 to today then deleted it.
You weren't interested in being bored stiff were you?
In the unix terminal run:
rm -rf /
Well, I don't know a great deal about non x86 based architectures like the Alpha, but what I had typed up before was starting with the i386 which was Intel's 3rd generation microprocessor architecture. The 386 was funny. PCs running on these processors were known to have a "turbo" button (which reduced the speed of the processor to about half when deactivated), because they were too fast for some programs when they were introduced. These were dropped in the i486 that came later though. The 486 fared well and was followed by the "586." Intel was very proud of that one and tried to tradmark that or whatever it is they do, but they weren't allowed to because it was just a number. So the "Pentium" was born. They later made the Pentium II, but this was really still more milking of their favored 586. It was the Pentium III that came out based on a new updated architecture that some would call the 686, though it was actually referred to as the P6 architecure. Shortly later, a company by the name AMD released an new architecture revision known as the "K7". Now they had the K5 and K6 before that and some even older stuff, but before this point all they had been known for were "off-brand" processors. Basically a cheaper pentium. Now I bring them up with the K7 because this is the architectue that their new "Athlon" processors were launched on. The important thing to note is that at some point, the Pentium III was reaching for a 1 Ghz clock speed at the same time the Athlon was. The Athlon actually broke the tape first and earned AMD some recognition as more than a maker of "off-brand" budget processors. Around this point Intel launched a totally new architecture called "netburst". The processors were called the Pentium 4. These things looked amazing to Joe Nobody on the street posting speeds around 1.4 Ghz when the Pentium III's and Athlons had only recently crossed 1 Ghz. What few ever realized was that the Pentium 4 got less done per cycle then the other architectures, so even though it had a faster clock rate it wasn't actually faster. Still marketing prevailed and the purpose of this new architecture became apparent as they started rapidly releasing ever faster processors. The Athlons kept up admirably, but the marketing was a bitch with so much less of a clock speed. Eventually AMD renamed their processors the Athlon XP and gave them ratings that acted as speed comparisons to equivalent Pentium 4's. Still, by this time the speeds of the P4's had grown so fast the Athlons were outclassed. Not for too long though, as the netburst architecture started to reveal it's flaws as it pushed past 3 Ghz. It was hot. Very hot. It consumed a lot of power for no damn good reason and became too difficult to cool to make it much faster. Then AMD capitalized on plans laid down when they first came out with the K7 and upgraded to the K8 and the Athlon 64 came to be. These were AMD's goleden child come right when Intel was down. Faster at lower clock speeds, cooler and much more power efficient than the P4's, these would lord it over the Pentiums for the rest of the netburst architecture's over-extended life. A life that was all the more embarassing when Intel found it couldn't use this power-hungry architecture in laptops and had to blow the dust off it's old P6 architecture and update it to make a proper laptop chip in the form of the Pentium M. This would be Intel's saving grace as they eventually built a whole new architectue using their upgraded P6 as a base and made the core architecture that they are now using today. An architectue that has been a silver bullet to AMD, felling their once mighty K8 almost outright. AMD has recently launched K10 (skipping K9 for reasons you could guess), but it's not a dramatic change from K8 and has been troubled with significantly lower clockspeeds preventing it from being able to compete as a high performance processor. Intel, having restructured after the Pentium 4 disaster is on the warpath of innovation and plans to unleash a new architecture within the next year to make good on a promise of having a new architecture every 2 years.
This upcoming architecture will be implementing features that were introduced by the K8 some years ago now. It will implement features that AMD had talked about with a future architecture as well. Intel's been kicking ass lately, but it's amusig how much they've been playing copycat to their seemingly defeated competitor. A competitor that grew up playing copycat to Intel. It's a cruel industry.
</long spiel>
Still with me? That's a quick look through about 15 years of history in the x86 processor market as I understand it. I skipped a lot of details though.
Fortunately, that functionality has been re-introduced into modern PCs in the form of Windows Vista. Unfortunately, no one's figured out how to turn it off this time around.
Oh, I should also note I'm logged on as root at the moment, so just hack into my computer to help me out instead of responding here if you want to be cool.