Dual Booting Various Linux Distro - Windows

kelvin.k303

Hello everyone! Im fairly new to Linux and I have purchased a load of new Distros. I will be installing quite a few on friends and families laptops and I just wondered which of the following Distros I have will and will not allow you to install the Linux OS alongside windows automatically (i.e when installing it gives you the option to boot alongside windows)...

I don't want to risk wiping the Windows OS so Im a bit anxious to just go ahead and install them and also I dont want to have to set up partitions and install GRUB etc manually?

Arch Linux Core Dual 19.08.11

Qimo 2.0

Centos 6.2

Debian 6.0

Ubuntu 12.1

Fedora 17

Mint 13 Mate

OpenSuse 12.2 KDE

PCLinuxOS Full Monty KDE

Knoppix 6.7.1

Ultimate Edition

Many thanks

Kelvin

Goineasy9

Most of the distros you listed will install automatically and set up grub for you. BUT, you will have to create the space on your hard disk in order to do so.

When I've done it I've run defrag twice, then used the windows partitioner to shrink the largest Windows partition (usually the data partition). Once you have empty space, everything else will run automatically.

Some Linux installers will allow you to shrink partitions while doing the install, but, it's safer to let windows do it itself.

mfillpot

The only distro I have used that can install without having a deisgnated partition is Ubuntu, it has an installer that creates a file in windows that it uses as a hard disk and it will automatically modify the windows bootloader to include the ubuntu option.