WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
ANYTHING YOU DO WHILE FOLLOWING THIS GUIDE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK! TheOldComputer.com, MYSELF, OR ANYONE ON THIS WEBSITE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PROBLEMS THAT MAY RENDER YOUR COMPUTER INOPERABLE!
DO NOT FORGET TO BACK UP SENSITIVE OR IMPORTANT DATA SUCH AS: MOVIES, MUSIC, PICTURES, DOCUMENTS, AND GAME SAVES!
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS GUIDE IS FOR STANDARD BIOS COMPUTERS - COMPUTERS USING UEFI TO BOOT INSTEAD OF A LEGACY BIOS MAY ENCOUNTER ERRORS!
Simple full installation WITHOUT windows:
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
THIS WILL COMPLETELY REMOVE WINDOWS AND ANY DATA CURRENTLY ON THE COMPUTER! DO NOT FORGET TO BACKUP YOUR DATA!
Step ONE
First things first, you need your linux Live CD/DVD. There are multiple distros out there, but for now I'm only going to recommend the top three for learning on in case you don't know a thing about linux.
Click on any of these to download them:
Ubuntu
Fedora
Linux Mint (as far as this one goes, you can either get the Live CD version, or the Live DVD version depending on your main disc drive. Currently, you want the GNOME desktop version)
Step TWO
Now that you have your linux Live CD/DVD you're going to need an ISO burning program. For those of you whom have an ISO program, skip this step. For those of you who do NOT have an ISO burning program, I'd suggest ImgBurn for a simple ISO burning program. Now, load into ImgBurn and tell it to "burn ISO to disc." Select your Linux Live CD/DVD ISO file and then place a blank disc into your DVD/CD burner. Burn this ISO to disc. MAKE SURE "VERIFY" IS CHECKED. After it burns to the disc, it will make sure that the data on the disc is an exact copy of the ISO file you told it to burn. When this is done, move on to step three.
Step THREE
Now that you have your Linux Live CD/DVD, pop it back into your drive and reboot.
MAKE SURE YOU'VE BACKED UP ANY SENSITIVE OR IMPORTANT DATA BY THIS POINT!
Now, it will boot into linux and you will be at the main desktop once it's finished. Be patient, loading from a CD/DVD and operating from a CD/DVD is going to be a slow process. Now, you'll need to find out how your distro of linux lets you install to the hard drive. With fedora, it's an icon on the desktop that says: "Install to Hard Drive." Start the installation program. Follow the steps of your installation program until you get to the part where it asks you where to install linux to. Make sure you're completely ready to overwrite your windows installation because after this step, windows will be removed from your computer along with any data on the hard drive. Once you've decided you're ready, tell linux to install to the C: partition. This will generally be the largest portion of the hard drive's space. It will ask you if you are sure before it formats the drive. Tell it yes of course. It will begin to format your hard drive and then install linux. Once it's finished, it will alert you that it's done and tell you to reboot to get into your new linux installation. So, reboot! AS SOON AS THE COMPUTER RETURNS TO THE BIOS SCREEN, REMOVE THE LIVE CD/DVD FROM THE DRIVE TO PREVENT LOADING BACK INTO IT! You have now completed the installation of linux. Enjoy!
Complex installation for installing linux alongside windows when windows is currently installed:
WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
THIS WILL NOT REMOVE WINDOWS OR ANY DATA ON YOUR COMPUTER, BUT IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA TO BACK UP YOUR DATA!
Step ONE
Same as step one above.
Step TWO
Download GParted Live and burn to a disc with any ISO burning software and you're going to want to click the latest version of GParted on the list, usually it is the top-most link.. Again I'd highly recommend ImgBurn for your ISO image burning software.
Step THREE
Do a COMPLETE DEFRAG. I'd EXTREMELY HIGHLY SUPERLY SUGGEST O&O Defrag 21 Professional Edition for best results (usually around 0.03% fragmented after this program finishes it's job).
-PROGRAM UPDATED 12/30/2017-
Step FOUR
Now that you've finished your defrag, pop in the GParted Live disc we made earlier and reboot. Once you've booted into GParted Live from the disc, it will load automatically. Select your C: partition and tell it you want to shrink this partition. This will generally be the largest portion of the hard drive's space. Usually 10 GB is all you'll need to shrink off of your windows partition, but I'd recommend 15 GB if you can spare it. The bare minimum you should shrink off of the partition though is no less than 8 GB. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THAT KIND OF SPACE FREE OF ANY DATA FIRST! Anyway, now that you've shrank the partition by whatever amount you've chosen, shut the GParted Live down by clicking the red power icon.
-INFORMATION ADDED 12/30/2011-
Step FIVE
Reboot into windows to see if everything is ok. Once you've made sure your windows installation is ok, pop in that Linux Live CD/DVD we made earlier and reboot.
Step SIX
Once you've made it into linux find whichever way your distro has to "Install to Hard Drive." With Fedora it's an icon on the desktop of the Live CD/DVD OS. When it asks you where to install Linux to, pick the section of the drive that you created earlier. It will be a section that is unpartitioned or raw. Tell linux to install there. Once you've selected that, you should be asked if you want to use a boot-loader. Tell linux YES. Once you've done that, it will format that unpartitioned space and install linux to it. It should alert you when it is finished and tell you to reboot to get into your new OS. That's it, just reboot. If you do not manually pick an OS to load into, it should load into your fresh linux installation by default. You usually have 3 seconds to pick the OS you'd like to boot into. At this point, you are done. Enjoy your new installation of linux alongside your current windows installation.
-LAST UPDATED 09/25/2014-
