M.Rudra wrote: > Currently I use FC-1 and also have a dual boot machine with win-XP. > My question : > I have not programmed with Linux, but would like to. So if i create a > seperate *user* and download any linux application under development > to fiddle with, will it crash my dual boot or linux box ? > I had read a few articles/blogs about problems with > testing/programming on a dual booting FC and XP machine. I dont want > that problem :-) as i wouldnt know how to fix it. > This is my home PC - I use it for regular stuff (music, email, > browsing, office apps, other stuff...) and yet I want it to be > stable.... Very short answer: No. Short answer: It depends, but probably not. Long answer: If you're doing kernel mode programming, X sever programming, or anything that needs privileged access to hardware, then all bets are off. But it doesn't sound as though you're ready for that, yet, and you'd know if you were doing it. If you run your programs as root, then there is the chance for those programs to trash your system. Otherwise, the very worst that you can do is trash your user files. And the chance of that, normally, is very remote. Unix (except in the early versions), and Linux (and Windows XP, come to that) have memory management. They use the MMU and "privileged modes" in the processor to ensure that normal programs can't fiddle with memory that they're not supposed to access. This means that they can't crash the entire OS, or get around the filesystem's permission flags. It would be very impressive to produce a program bug that could trash user files unrelated to the program, unless you were playing around with "find" and "rm" type functionality. But as you imply, if you do development and testing as a separate user, and if you've got the permission flags set appropriately (which they should be for /home, but check any shared directories or vfat mounts), then even such a bug will only affect the development user. Very few developers bother. You should have good backups of anything you care about: this is simply normal good practice whether you program or not. James. -- James Wilkinson | DON'T be put off by "horror stories" spread by Exeter Devon UK | others. People who talk about death and serious E-mail address: james | injury are very rarely the ones who have actually @westexe.demon.co.uk | suffered such things. -- Adrian Plass
