About to break out of my comfort zone...

[Trekk69]

So I am a Windows user and have always been.

But this weekend I have decided to try out Linux Mint 5. I have never used any Linux/Ubuntu products before, so my plan is to try to dual boot on my X61T Vista 32 and Linux Mint 5.

Anyone tried it?
Anyone offer first time tips? Words of advice? Etc?

Will keep posting on how it goes and my thoughts. Downloading now...

Thanks for your help.

[ajkula66]

You will love it in my opinion.

Had Mint 4.0 on my X60T and mostly everything worked out of the box.

Personally, I'd let it run as a "live" distro for a while, until you get the hang of it.

Keep us informed on how you find it.

[Trekk69]

Thanks a lot, I have continued reading about it, and am enjoying what I am reading about for it.
I was planning on using the 'live' version to make sure I would like it for a while, and test out what I normally do on my tablet to make sure most would be compatible.
Currently downloading at 13% done.

[Trekk69]

So, good thing for RnR and a recent backup.
So I downloaded the ISO no problem, and had the Live CD going and was exploring around, but I forgot my internet password.
So I restarted, took out the CD, made sure I was booting from my HDD like normal (I was going to open up Vista to get my internet password), and after the little scroll bar loading at the bottom, my black screen popped up with my mouse cursor (where it than normally waits a sec than moves onto the 'fingerprint login screen').
Anyway, screen stayed black with the cursor, I waited, and the login screen never came up. Tried again again, and nothing.
So I loaded up Thinkvantage, and restored to a recent backup.

I don't remember touching anything when I was in Linux, although I opened up the folders of SW_preload and SV2000 (or whichever one that is), just to view the contents, but didn;t touch anything). Although when I was restarting Windows the CHKDISK came up and said there were some corrupted files that it had to delete (so maybe I did screw something up).

So just wondering if I screwed something up along the way, etc? I was going to try again anyway.

Oh ya, and another question, if I decide to use Linux and install it and repartition my HDD, if after a while, I want to go back to only Vista, so I use RnR and my backup, will it format the whole HDD back to the partitions I had before with my backup?

Thanks will keep you posted, and also asking this in the Linux Mint Forum.

[Trekk69]

So, I re-tried it and it worked all fine.
I still need to play around with LM5 and make sure I can get the tablet function happening...any advice on that (where to get drivers, etc)?

Moreover, can anyone answer: If I decide to use Linux and install it and repartition my HDD, if after a while, I want to go back to only Vista, so I use RnR and my backup, will it format the whole HDD back to the partitions I had before with my backup?

Thanks again guys

[Marin85]

If you are going to dual boot Linux and Vista, why bothering with RnR recovery?! You could simply wipe out the Linux partitions, then you´ll need to fix the master boot record (since the GRUB will be still present there despite of wiping out Linux). That´s also quite simple: just boot from Vista DVD -> repair my computer -> cmd -> typing Bootrec.exe/FixMbr (without the smily ) and you should be then ok

Cheers

Marin