netbook question

[Jerry Feldman]

On 03/03/2010 10:17 AM, Mark J Dulcey wrote:
> On 03/03/2010 07:42 AM, Jerry Feldman wrote:
>  =20
>> I was just asked if it were possible to dual boot a netbook. Not ownin=
g
>> of having used one I really could not answer the question asked. My gu=
t
>> feel is that generically yes, but that the netbook would have to boot
>> from an external USB device (and since I know that is possible based o=
n
>> installfest experience), is it possible assuming enough HD storage to
>> partition the HD (or SSD) to have both Windows 7 and Linux. (Not
>> something that I would recommend).
>>    =20
> There are no special obstacles to putting dual boot on a netbook. The=20
> only question is space; you can't put two OSes on the ones with small=20
> SSDs (my own Eee 900A is an extreme case, it only has a 4GB internal=20
> SSD). You could put a second OS on an SD card and boot from that, as th=
e=20
> BIOS in all netbooks I am familiar with can boot from SD and USB as wel=
l=20
> as from the internal drive.
>
>  =20
Apparently the person who asked me was specifically told by a sales
person at Best Buy that the netbook has a special version of Windows 7
and could not be set up for dual boot. My experience tells me that the
salesman has a case of rectocranial inversion. I think the only case
where a computer could not dual boot would be if there were special code
in the BIOS, and as I mentioned in a prior post, I have not seen that in
a PC class machine since Windows 98 days.

--=20
Jerry Feldman <gaf-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
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