Before you post: Linux Dual-Booting thread

Introduction

Recently this forum has been flooded with a plethora of questions surrounding dual-booting Linux. This has been understood to frustrate many regulars. After all, we are a volunteer organisation and nobody likes repeating themselves over and over again without being paid for the trouble. While dual-booting may be a new experience for you, it is a common daily occurrence the regulars have done almost to death. Please, I urge you to be considerate before asking questions. Many if not all questions can be answered by Google. If you clearly have trouble and cannot find any help on the internet, please feel free to ask here. After all, difference and variety make forums interesting!

Who should Dual-Boot on the same disk?
*Those who find virtual machines lacking in performance and speed
*Those who are making a serious commitment to using Linux
*Those who do not have a spare hard drive

Alternatives to dual-booting

The absolute simplest way to dual-boot is to install both operating systems on different disks.

Another safe way to try out Linux would be to use a virtual machine like Virtualbox: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Dual-Boot on the same disk

How to dual-boot Linux with Windows

But seriously, the internet has far better guides about how to dual-boot Windows/Mac OS X and Linux. We aren't realistically going to rewrite a guide on how to dual-boot Linux and Windows/Mac OS X for each individual person asking. Your Google search is as good as mine.

Dual booting guides are so common these days, there's almost 3 for every single major release of every major distribution. Just type this into Google:

Dual booting < your Linux distribution here> <version> and <Your OS here>

The procedure is largely the same for most distributions. If you can't find a dual-boot guide on your version of Linux, search for a guide on how to dual-boot with the distribution that your current distribution is based on.

Often this process is as simple as installing Windows/Mac OS X first, figuring out how much each installation should have and installing Linux afterwards.

If you are still in the process of choosing a distribution, may I suggest: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

Troubleshooting

If you want to know if your particular hardware device is supported in Linux, your best bet is to Google search. We have less than 10 regulars here in this forum, so the odds are against us having personal experience with your hardware, however, the billions of people on the internet will probably know better.

If you have trouble booting Linux, validating the disc integrity. Most distributions will ask you if you want to do this upon launch. If the disc checker shows that you have issues with the disc, burn it at a slow speed and check the integrity of the ISO you have downloaded. Avoid using an IDM to download an ISO

If you would like to boot from a USB, check out Unetbootin: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

If you want the Linux equivalent of a Windows/Mac OS X program, check this out: http://alternativeto.net/