Would you install Linux on the same drive as WinXP?

[gingo]

I've had Windows and Linux installed on the same drive before, but that was months ago and only had that going for a while.

I never though there was anything wrong with it but now I am hearing that it is not good to do this.
Reasons are that Linux could corrupt the MBR and cause other problems that are hard to diagnose, this is why it is better to install on a seperate computer.

Any truth to that? I mean, I'm sure its possible, but if I have a smoothly running windows partition should I put linux on another partition?

Btw, thinking of going with Suse.

[Kendan]

As long as it is on a different partition you should be just fine.

[HaTE]

i dont know if its bad, but my brother had a computer he dual booted with winxp and gentoo linux and he never had any problems.

[Jon]

Linux has about as much probability of ruining your MBR as Windows does. Just create another partition to install linux on and if you're really worried about the MBR, just choose to make a boot disk instead of installing the bootloader to the MBR.

[klingens]

Linux has about as much probability of ruining your MBR as Windows does.
I disagree: Linux has never ever overwritten my MBR without asking first, and when I said "no" it always obeyed. Windows however overwrote the MBR each and every time I installed it (and Windows needs a lot of reinstalling....) without asking. It just made my Linux side unbootable.
The original poster seems to be a bit confused tho. First he talks about Linux on the same drive, then on the same partition as Windows. Both things are very very different. "Drive" means "physical harddrive", a 1kg brick of metal, while "partition" means "allocated space on a drive" where you can have more than one on the aforementioned brick. The fact that Windows talks about partitions as "drives" probably doesn't help...
You want a different partition for each operating system, but those 2 partitions can share a physicial drive quite happily

[sleepingcell]

I have that setup on my machine - no problems to date.

ITA

[Jon]

I disagree: Linux has never ever overwritten my MBR without asking first, and when I said "no" it always obeyed. Windows however overwrote the MBR each and every time I installed it (and Windows needs a lot of reinstalling....) without asking. It just made my Linux side unbootable.
The original poster seems to be a bit confused tho. First he talks about Linux on the same drive, then on the same partition as Windows. Both things are very very different. "Drive" means "physical harddrive", a 1kg brick of metal, while "partition" means "allocated space on a drive" where you can have more than one on the aforementioned brick. The fact that Windows talks about partitions as "drives" probably doesn't help...
You want a different partition for each operating system, but those 2 partitions can share a physicial drive quite happily

Maybe I should have said "no more probability" than.

I've never had either of them ruin my MBR.

[9mmCensor]

Its fine to run dual boot, just use different partions. But remember that installing windows on a drive with linux already screws up the boot loader for linux (repairable) and the drive only boots windows until you fix it.

[gingo]

I disagree: Linux has never ever overwritten my MBR without asking first, and when I said "no" it always obeyed. Windows however overwrote the MBR each and every time I installed it (and Windows needs a lot of reinstalling....) without asking. It just made my Linux side unbootable.
The original poster seems to be a bit confused tho. First he talks about Linux on the same drive, then on the same partition as Windows. Both things are very very different. "Drive" means "physical harddrive", a 1kg brick of metal, while "partition" means "allocated space on a drive" where you can have more than one on the aforementioned brick. The fact that Windows talks about partitions as "drives" probably doesn't help...
You want a different partition for each operating system, but those 2 partitions can share a physicial drive quite happily

Uh, I never mentioned Linux being on the same partition as windows. And I know the difference between a physical hard drive and a partition....
Basically when I said 'should I put Linux on another partition' I was meaning should I install Linux at all.

[{PMS}fishy]

Uh, I never mentioned Linux being on the same partition as windows. And I know the difference between a physical hard drive and a partition....
Basically when I said 'should I put Linux on another partition' I was meaning should I install Linux at all.

Well then, why didnt you just say that? ;)

Anyways, dual boots are fine. You'll have no trouble with them at all. Id prefer to wipe Windows of and go Linux all the way, but thats me. The only issue you might encounter is setting up GRUB or a boot loader for that matter. There are quite a few ways to do it, and they all work. Its up to you how to do it.

[gingo]

Well then, why didnt you just say that? ;)

Anyways, dual boots are fine. You'll have no trouble with them at all. Id prefer to wipe Windows of and go Linux all the way, but thats me. The only issue you might encounter is setting up GRUB or a boot loader for that matter. There are quite a few ways to do it, and they all work. Its up to you how to do it.

2AM does wonders to my general thinking and reasoning skills....

But ok, thanks for the input everyone.