[surfmom]

I have an older Compaq PII w/256K RAM into which I have installed a second drive. My question; can I load a copy of Linux on the new drive and set the PC up as a dual boot machine? I've never worked with Linux but have this copy lying around and would like to give it a shot. THanks

[lynch]

Short answer is "probably".
What version of Linux do you have? For example, Mandrake 10 or Fedora Core2?
HTH
lynch

[saikee]

Go and get a Live CD, which can load itself from a CD and does not need a hard disk to operate, find out if it works, happy with it and then install. Knoppix can boot a Linux system for you in 3 minutes flat and not even one question is asked.

A Linux check every partition of each drive to compile its boot menu. Thus you can't avoid dual boot when you run a Linux.

Popular Linux needs about 1.5 to 4Gb but you need to pick one that demands lesser space.