Dual Boot Linux on G50VT-X1

I am trying to Dual Boot Linux on my system, my question is do i have to create a new partition on the hard drive, or can i use the default partition that asus had already one for me? The G50VT-X1 is already partitioned basically in half right from ASUS, thanks in advance.

 

Although I don't have much experience with Linux, it should be fairly similar to a dual boot with XP/Vista. Make sure you format the partition before installing Linux. You could just use the existing empty partition that came as default on your hard drive, so a new partition isn't necessary.

 

Actually I'm doing the same thing. However I'm triple booting Windows Xp, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu. I suggest you restore you whole drive, then make your primary drives. Remember that Ubuntu, uses a swab drive as well. Then for you extra hard drive space you should use it as data.
I'll make a tutorial as soon as I figure out why I can't install windows xp. For some reason I get a blue screen :d(

 

Here's a tip if you're using RAID, at the boot menu before the installer hit TAB and add dmraid=true to the boot arguments. That'll let you use RAID on teh linuxes! Other than that go with this guide (they don't tell u about the RAID bit, so keep that in mind):

http://monalisa.cern.ch/blog/2008/09/16/ubuntu-on-asus-g50v/

 

I was astounded to find that Ubuntu 8.10 will happily install itself on a Vista32 system as a large Windows file (you can choose size, default is 15GB), sets up dual booting, and runs perfectly that way without messing up any of your current partitioning schemes. I do not know if that applies to RAID, and it does customize the MBR, but basically this is like running Windows on a Mac under Parallels except it's not virtualization, it's genuine dual boot and the only performance penalty you may pay is a very small hard disk access and data transfer hit in Ubuntu as it does the file format translations in real time (I assume). It's free, on the 8.10 disk image download, and can be installed & uninstalled without messing up any current partitions... pretty hard to beat all that, methinks.

 

Yeah, The install within windows feature is a great concept, the only problem is with some people (Like gamers) the performance decrease you get is enough to mess your games up. Making ext3 partitions and swap space is really easy though, especially with Ubuntu/Fedora