Should I install Linux?

[Kings]

I'm planning on having a dual boot with Windows 98, for games and usual work, on one partition and Windows XP, for ASP/IIS, on another. Should I create another partition and bang on Linux, for PHP/MySQL?

If yes, what version do you recommend? I've never worked with Linux before, and I'd like it to be free (downloadable)

Thanks

[JungleMan]

Any reason why you couldn't use PHP/MySQL in XP? You can install it easily, into IIS or Apache.

If you want to dabble into Linux, give it a shot, but personally seems like a lot more work to me to keep booting between OSes.

[Gandalf_Grey_]

Justins got a point, if you have never used linux before and would like to dual boot learn it before you start hosting a website on it.

[Sastraxi]

...but what an experience it will be

[markman]

Its a great experience dual booting. And setting up a server will make it even better. It might take a whil if you are totally new to linux though.
Remember that to run a server on one partition, you have to reboot...

[JoshT]

Linux or BSD will run great on older hardware - you can set up SSH and maybe FTP on them and work with them from your Windows box. I'd put it on an old Pentium, stick it in a corner, and not bother with dual-booting.

[Sastraxi]

I was able to squeeze the last juice out of my box with Linux... I'm able to run RtCW, UT (native) and Warcraft 3, HOMM3 (emulated) faster in Linux. Which means a lot to me, as my computer's bad for gaming.

[Kings]

Originally posted by Jungle-Man
Any reason why you couldn't use PHP/MySQL in XP? You can install it easily, into IIS or Apache.

If you want to dabble into Linux, give it a shot, but personally seems like a lot more work to me to keep booting between OSes.

Mail() and several others things don't work with IIS, and I want to give Apache a shot.

Booting between OSes won't be such a problem, as I will only use Linux now and then.

Any specific version you recommend?

[markman]

for servers, red hat
for personal desktop, mandrake
for advanced, slackware

[Kings]

Thanks

[Ahriman]

I suggest mandrake cause i hear red hat has poor KDE support. Mandrake also has a good disk partitioning utility. People have told me they buy a copy of mandrake just to get the partitioning program. You can get most linux distributions here http://linuxiso.org . If you want makdrake, you might want to wait for version 9. It's in beta right now and is supposed to be finished in september.

If a server is what your after, you'll definitaly want a unix like system. Windows and IIS are toys for people who don't know unix.

[Sastraxi]

SuSE works well over here

[markman]

Originally posted by Ahriman
I suggest mandrake cause i hear red hat has poor KDE support.

I see no problem...