Matt Van Stone

Most people who want to try Linux arent ready to give up Windows quite yet. This is where dual booting comes in. By splitting your hard drive into two partitions you are able to install Windows on one partition and Linux on the other. When you turn your computer on you will be given a simple menu which will let you choose which operating system you want to use.

Before we get to dual booting you will have to get yourself a copy of Ubuntu Linux.

The Prep work:
1) Download Ubuntu. Ubuntu runs on i386, AMD64, and PowerPC (Mac). So first you have to find out which type of platform you are on. For the average PC user I would suggest i386. If you go for the AMD64 version you have to make sure you have the right CPU, also you may not be able to find 64-bit versions of every program. If in doubt use i386, and if you are on a Mac use PowerPC.
I highly suggest using the BitTorrent files to download it. It saves the server bandwidth and will probably be much faster. If you dont know how to use BitTorrent then just grab the ISO.

Download from a specific location:
http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Download from the Canada Server:
ubuntu-6.06-alternate-i386.iso.torrent
ubuntu-6.06-alternate-i386.iso

2) Once the download is complete open the ISO in your favorite CD burning utility and burn it to a CD. I use Nero on Windows. Incase you are brand new to burning ISO files, an ISO is a disk image. You do not want to burn the ISO file to a CD, you want to open it using the Open… command under the file menu of your burning tool. This will take the files inside the ISO and burn them to a bootable CD.

Dual Booting Windows XP and Ubuntu 6.06
Once you have your Ubuntu CD burned you can use this video guide to setup your dual boot. This video requires you re-install Windows. If your hard drive already has 2 partitions you dont have to re-install Windows, just delete your 2nd partition and start from the point in the video where they start to install Ubuntu.

If you get into any trouble you can feel free to post questions here, or visit http://www.ubuntuforums.org/.