Is it possible to download LINUX on a Windows machine?

11 Comments

1. thetawaves666 says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   YAY! Another one converted!

   This has always been a troublesome thing. I’m not going to lie to you. If this is done incorrectly, you can completly delete all windows data and everything that is sacred to you.

   I DO NOT want you to try this until someone with more exprience than I comes and checks this for accuracy.

   That being said, lets begin.

   Your first and very important choice, what version of Linux do you want? For a beginner such as yourself, I suggest a version with a self installer: Xandros or Red Hat Fedora.

   Once you visit one of their sites and download their package, burn it onto a DVD or a few CDs.

   Before you use this, you need to set aside extra room on your hard drive for Linux. You can do this by getting Ranish Partition Manager at: http://www.ranish.com/part/ and take some space (at least 8 GB) out of your Windows partition. Leave this data in unformated space (no partiton format)

   Put this disk into the correct drive, and proceed to make your partitions. The self-installers should be able to select the extra space you made before and utilize it to make Linux.

   A new boot loader will be installed and you can select either Linux or Windows (sometimes labled as DOS).

   You can change the default Operating System the Boot Loader boots into, but be careful. Run your system in Linux. When you have booted up, open the following file: /etc/grub.conf
   When you open this file there will be a text editor which will have one line that reads:
   default=0
   Depending on what your bootloader recognized Windows as on the list change the 0 to an number 0-4.

   e.x. (This is the boot manager)
   0.Linux
   1.Tools
   2.Expert
   3.Windows (or DOS)

   In that list you would want to select 3. So, change the default to:
   default=3
2. mad4it028 says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   yes you can down load it but it wont work with windows it needs to replace windows
   unless you fancey yourself as a hacker i wouldnt bother
3. Pablo says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   no it will not affect ur computer in any way or form,!
   and yes u can download it,!
   good luck
4. tarzan_055 says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   there will be no problem if you configure things right and espacially the boot loader. just let linux fix it for you when you get to the step of letting linux making the boot loader.
5. Cfox says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   Are you downloading it as a program? Or are you wanting to install it in another partition? Usually thats the only way you can use Linux is installing it in a separate partition. If you are downloading the Operating System fromthe internet, then follow the directions very closely about ISO Imaging to CD to make a CD from your download.
6. Big H says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   Straight forward answer is NO. If we look deeper at what you are doing… Linux is an Operating system. Meaning it will act much like Windows, it will control all your hardware and other applications can run ontop of it. Linux and windows cannot be ran at the same time (there are exceptions). However, you CAN have windows and linux installed on the same computer. Taking this another step further, your first step is to download a linux distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora,Slackware,etc…) ISO. Once you have this downloaded on your windows machine, you can burn a cd of the distro you downloaded. The next step is to install linux. This part becomes tricky.

   If your harddrive is not partitioned properly to have another operating system on it you will lose all your information and applications you have stored and loaded in windows. To avoid this i suggest getting partition magic or something similar to it which will let you "split" (partition) your hard drive so you can install more than one operating system.

   Once you have the partitions set then you can load the distro cd and install it to the designated partition you created.

   I know this all sounds confusing but it is really not that bad…. Hope this helps..
7. NULL says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   Well you can download Linux on a Windows machine and it will not affect any of the applications that you are currently running. But you cannot install Linux unless you partition the system to be dual-boot. If you simply want to play around with Linux you could try Knoppix which is basically Linux running from a CD. This will not affect anything on your windows machine. But I would exercise caution while playing around.
   I also know that there is an option/software that lets you run Linux as a separate process on Windows. But this is extremely slow.
   Gud Luck!!!
   Rgds
8. theunknownreverend says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   There is a version of Linux that you can d/l and burn to a disk and run off the disk by booting to the cdrom drive, but I don’t remember what it is called.
9. iOwnYou says:

   28. December 2010 at 17:01

   Download it,burn it to a bootable dvd and install it onto a new partition on your HDD.
10. sunny20n81 says:

    28. December 2010 at 17:01

    Yes u can.

    But the problem starts when u start installing Linux on ur machine.

    There are two ways of doing that.

    1) Either u install a VM-Ware on ur system.
    2) Or u create a new disk partition and install Linux on that new partition.
11. todos_a_menos says:

    28. December 2010 at 17:01

    Yes, and there are versions which will run in a windows environment. Below are some in different languages.
    By the way, Linux is the Kernel. Not the OS. Get it right.
    To everyone above and below. Linux is the way to go.