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My Vaio has almost no space left on it's C Drive. Would it be possible to install a partition of Ubuntu on it's D Drive?
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If your D drive is a restore partition, you need to make sure you have already burned your restore discs before formatting or installing an OS on that partition.
You also need to consider that keeping the restore partition is useful for getting your system back to its original state if you don't have restore CD's handy.
Using a Windows drive letter doesn't give us enough information to solve your problem. For instance, the D drive on my copy of Windows is my CD-ROM drive. If you mean that you want to install onto CD, then no you can't do it. If you want to install onto a DVD-RAM, this might be possible; but I don't know whether it's a good idea.
If your D drive is a recovery partition, then it's probably not a good idea to do this; if your Windows fails at a later date, then without a recovery partition you'd basically be stuck with:
A. Buying another copy of Windows, or
B. Blowing away your Windows partition and switching to FLOSS full-time
Of course, we'd like to see B happen, but you might not.
My D drive is just a hard drive. I don't think it has a recovery partition on it (show how much I know...).
What's the model number of your computer?
Check XP's Disk Management to learn if you have one hard drive with two partitions or two hard drives with each having one partition. Post the details here if you have questions.
I personally would erase the entire disk(s) and install a wonderful linux distrobution called Ubuntu. There are some issues with Ubuntu and it is not perfect, (What the heck is?) I am currently doing things with Ubuntu that I never thought possible with a linux system. (I love playing DOOM III on Ubuntu because it plays faster with less dropped frames than when playing it on the same exact system on windows.)
Playing games like DOOM 3 wasn't always possible with linux systems. If you do not have an XGI technology video card I would recomend getting a free install CD from Ubuntu. Some XGI video cards have issues trying to display Ubuntu properly. I now have an Nvidia video card and Love it.
One of the best things about Ubuntu is that things work VERY well right out of the box. One thing it does not do well yet is communicate with a PDA or pocket PC so if you have one of those then you will want to keep your windows distrobution.
There are ways to do justa bout anything and everything with Ubuntu that you do now with Windows. Excel spread sheets can be easily ported over to OpenOffice ready formats and OppenOffice is FREE.
For more information on Ubuntu:
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/desktopedition
http://technorati.com/search/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2F%3Fv%3DgpOz8duTh-4
Ubuntu is full of wonderful features like community forums, quick and easy updates, regular releases, ease of installation, and freedom from legal restrictions. I not only recomend it, I have and use it every day. I started building computers in 1993 and had a love/hate relationship with Windows until Spring of 2004 when I downloaded and installed Mandriva, but hated the fact that I couldn't get support unless I paid $60.00 for it.
Now I know how to do just about everything I can find to do. (Except get my Pocket PC sync'd to my Ubuntu Desktop.) It's easy, fun, and exciting with tons of little acrade style games you can download for free as well as play big name games like DOOM 3, Quake 4, and many many more. (after you buy the game and have a cd key of course.)
What I would reccomend is that you either download and burn the .iso or have one mailed to you and only pay for shipping. Use the live CD without installing the system until you become familiar with things like the network tools which are very nessesary for everyday computing. Once you are familiar with the system then install it to your computer. It's some what like learning a new language, so don't feel too badly if you find yourself wanting the familiar things you used to use in windows. Just remember that there is a learning curve for everything. You didn't really know what you were doing with windows when you first started did you? This won't be any different except you will have an entire forum devoted to new people.
http://ubuntuforums.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(Linux_distribution)
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/
Sincerely,
HD
Down the thread you said your "D: drive" is a second hard drive.
You can install and run pretty much any GNU/Linux distribution on any drive the computer can see.
There is one catch. You will have to <em>pay attention</em> when you run the distribution's install program, and <em>take control</em> of the situation when it is making decisions about how to partition your drive, where to write its boot record, etc. You could drink nine beers and install Ubuntu or CentOS the default way. But you'll have to stay sober to slightly customize your installation.
The install program will ask, at some point, to "make your hard drive bootable." It wants to create a dual-boot menu by writing a GNU/Linux boot loader over the one Microsoft wrote. Hold off. Let the installer create a boot floppy instead. Or make a raw GRUB disk (it's easy) and learn to boot anything from anywhere (that's easy too) without using any boot loader on the hard drive at all. Or learn to do that with the CD you installed the system from.
As helpful and friendly as we are, you're not going to learn how to do that here. Try a few live CDs and pick a distribution you like. Find its newbie support forum and learn to ask intelligent, specific questions there. Chances are several relative experts will take the time to write detailed step by step instructions for exactly what you want to do.
Maybe you just want to put Ubuntu Long Term Support Desktop on one big partition on drive #2. (The nine beers scenario.) But maybe you want to use <em>four</em> partitions: one for Ubuntu, one for swap space, one for your "home" user account directories, and one for experimenting with other distributions. That way you don't have to move your personal desktop and music collection when you decide to switch distributions.
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