Advice Needed Linux distro for a total beginner?

[battenfan]

The most popular bootloader today is I believe Grub 2. It can dual boot Windows and Linux but it's not easy to install and you might need to hand edit configuration files. I might be a good idea to not mess with the Windows disk and install the bootloader on a usb stick.
I can't even guess how much you need to allocate. Only that ntfs partitions are accessible from Linux so you won't need to make extra room for media files, you can keep them on E: Out of 500 GB, how much do you need for Windows? Leave the rest to Linux partitions, 5 - 100 GB?

 

[jeallen01]

Battenfan

Many thanks for your post.

From what you said, I don't think I'll try Grub 2 just yet!

That means I will have to use external media for the distro(s). Not a great fan of USB sticks but I wonder if anyone has booted from SD cards as the mini-PC has a front-accessible SD card slot (I've yet to check if the BIOS allows me do that but I think it might)?

I won't need too much space for Windows and related programmes and data, so I think I've have at least 200GB (probably more) space left - But I might still make those 2 extra partitions so that I can (to ease the strain on my brain!) keep any Linux Data (e.g. downloaded stuff) separate from the Windows-downloaded Data and still have a spare partition for a distro when I can to grips with something like Grub 2 to dual-boot.

Thanks again

John

 

[excollier]

Grub 2 is the default and will install along with your Linux distro. It will see Windows and add it to the list of bootable OSes.
I've never had any trouble with it.

 

[Lazarus]

Indeed.

It will easily resize any existing Windows partition and create/size appropriate partitions for one or more Linux Distros.

And you'll get a choice of which OS to boot into upon startup. You can even change the order in which the OSs are listed, if you wish, to effectively create a Custom Default.

 

[jeallen01]

excollier & Lazarus

Good news - I'll see what happens then!

Thanks

John

 

[jeallen01]

PS:
The ACER has now gone T***s up again - spent the afternoon trying to sort it out, but it looks like a h/w fault that affects all the I/O's - hopefully going back for replacement PDQ.
.
Thus it will be a "few" (?) days before I can proceed any further

 

[Lazarus]

Quelle fromage

 

[jeallen01]

Lazarus

Yup, I'm cheesed off as well (and very p****d off with "Morgan Computers" "support" responses so far). However, I sent them a real "s***ogramme" this evening , detailing what I found this afternoon. Hopefully, they will react "positively" and replace the current machine with one that actually works properly, and PDQ!

PS: I do like the current machine "in principle" because, if it works properly, it will be very suitable as an HTPC.

 

[jeallen01]

Maybe making some "progress" with the ACER - looks like IJT ("Morgans") IT people (or whoever) botched the downgrade of the machine from Win8 Pro to Win7 Pro and did not load up all the correct chipsets drivers because Device Manager kept flagging that yesterday.

This morning I downloaded the drivers from the Acer website and am now transferring all (good knows how many, but its probably nearly 2000 files) of them to a USB 3 drive to load on the machine - and then, just after I did the download, I got a email from IJT asking me to do that! Replied to the effect that they were too slow off the mark (as usual!) :mad:

 

[Lazarus]

Let's hope it fully resolves all the issues.