dual booting linux and windows on same machine

Windows and Linux can live comfortably on the same the same machine, even the same harddrive. The choice of operating systems can be made at the boot-up sequence when you thro the power switch. This configuration is known as the "dual-boot" configuration. This is how most linux users start off. Unless you're a BOFH of course *grin*.
FAT32 Support Requirements
To have access to your Win partition from Linux (file sharing between Linux and Win), which is useful, think of all those MP3s... you will also need a version 2.0.34 of the Linux kernel or higher. Below is a list of recent Linux distros and the kernel build versions (2.0.34 or higher!) that support FAT32.


If your kernel version doesn't support Fat32 you will have to upgrade the kernel. I'm not too hot on kernel upgrades, so I'm not going to say too much on that. As ever RTFM!


Distributions with FAT32 support (kernel 2.0.34 or higher) Distribution:
        Earliest Version with FAT32 Support
Red Hat
        Version 5.1 (with kernel 2.0.34)

Red Hat
        Version 6.0 (with kernel 2.0.36)

SuSE
        Version 5.3 (with kernel 2.0.35)

SuSE
        Version 6.0 (with kernel 2.0.36)

Debian GNU/Linux
        Version 2.0 (with kernel 2.0.34)