Do the new black XP Dells support Duel-booting?

[Monica]

I'm just wondering if they do because if I get a new computer, I want to put Knoppix on, but I heard somewhere that the new Dells won't let you. I am a Dell fan and so is my dad. I have an oldish white ME system and he has a black XP one. I couldn't test it because he's VERY protective of his XP computer. It looks really nice, but I will only get one if I'm certain it can duel-boot, partitions, etc.

[Radium]

I'm sure you can get dual booting to work one way or another.

[Breaker]

Of course it can... Not sure why you would want a Dell in the first place of course, they're garbage. Just like any other manufactured brand of old computer components they package together and sell overpriced.

www.NewEgg.com - Build your own computer.

[vegeta1215]

Knoppix is a Live CD Linux distro. You boot from the CD and just use it, and when you're done, you shutdown, and your system is unchanged! It's really a cool idea. (they may have a regular distro CD too, but Knoppix is known for it's Live CD)

I actually tried a similar Live CD Linux called Morphix, which is based on Knoppix. I was really impressed by Morphix, and it's cool cause they offer a few different varieties: they have a Heavy GUI one, Light GUI (I tried this one), a KDE one, and a Games one. I think it's perfect for anyone who wants to try Linux without worry of altering their system. Check it out: http://morphix.sourceforge.net/

About dual booting on a Dell: I haven't heard anything about there being any problems with it. If you want to dual boot, you'll have to partition your drive. Partition magic is great for that, but many Linux distros partition your drive during the install if you want to do it that way. If it's for a Fat32 system you'd have to defrag the hard drive so all the data is on one end. Not sure about NTFS though.

[Flash Man]

Knoppix is based off of Debian, which Debian has DebianCD. Most anything based off of it is put to a CD, Slackware, Lindows Knoppix. Didn't realize Knoppix was in english though.

[CoolestNameEver]

Thanks for the advice, I've been planning on doing something like this soon too.

[Rijuhn]

Maybe I'm just lucky but my Dell Demension 4300 that I bought 2 years ago is still as stable as the day I got it. It's probably because of a combination of me taking care of it, me having Windows XP and because I upgraded it before I ordered it.

[vegeta1215]

Originally posted by Rijuhn
Maybe I'm just lucky but my Dell Demension 4300 that I bought 2 years ago is still as stable as the day I got it. It's probably because of a combination of me taking care of it, me having Windows XP and because I upgraded it before I ordered it.

Our family had one of the very first Dell computers, pre Pentium days. Since then we've gotten a Pentium III Dell and my brother got a Pentium IV Dell last summer. We've had very few problems with them. Dell makes nice computers :D

Taking care of it helps alot too. :)

[Monica]

Thanks guys, and we've had 4 great Dells that served us well. (but dad bought a new one every time Windows came out with a new version) I just wanted to be sure it was possible. I think it was here at AGN I saw someone post that their black Dell wouldn't let them put another OS besides XP. Forgive me if I misunderstood.

[Ich]

They should. I don't see how it would be possible for them to make them XP exclusive machines, or if it would be a good idea. We've got a lot of these new black XP Dells at school. They're nice; once you go black you never go back.

[theplustwo]

actually, dells aren't as bad as they used to be. they used to use alot of proprietary hardware, making upgrading virtually impossible alot of the time. now you just get those cool side-opening cases :P

you should be able to do a dual boot easily, as long as the hardware in the dell is supported by the OS you are going to be using. shouldn't matter what computer you use, if you have the hard drive space, you can dual boot.