Installing the Operating System

Your PC is ready to go and now you are facing the difficult task of choosing your operating system. Well, its not that much of a choice really, because you cannot really escape the Microsoft vacuum. However, there are alternatives to Windows 9x/NT, some of which are just as powerful (and more). But if you want to stay compatible with the rest of the world, there is no getting away from Microsoft. Even I - a heavy Linux user - use Dreamweaver, FrontPage and other Windows applications for my Web Site.

I don't want to put Microsoft down, because all we really hate about them is their size and power, and their associated abuse of it. And I totally agree! But let's face it, they do produce good software, at least in part. So come on all you software companies, give them some stiff competition! It'll drive them and yourself, and everyone's a winner ...

Enough of that, here are some of the most popular operating systems for you to have a look at. Even though you might opt for Windows 9x in the end, maybe I can at least persuade you to a multi-boot system or a set of removable hard drives. It really pays off to give other operating systems a chance.

Windows 2000	Windows 9x	Windows NT4
BSD	Linux	BeOS

I am addressing each section with the assumption that your hard drive has no assigned partitions at this moment. To ensure that your hard drive is free for the things to come, boot it up with a system disk and start your fixed disk utility, under Windows 9x that is FDISK. Delete all listed partitions (DOS and non-DOS) and reboot your computer. You should end up with an error message such as: 'No ROM, system halted' or 'Press a key to reboot'. Your hard drive is now ready for (re-)partitioning.