Keep your surprise penguins. I just want to connect to the Internet.

I've been settling in comfortably with Microsoft's new toy -- Windows 7 -- but at the same time, I've become determined to give Linux another try on this computer. I know I said otherwise, but I'd rather lend out some space on this nice and big hard drive than bother with conjuring up another PC right now. After re-partitioning my hard drive, I ended up installing not just one, but two distributions -- openSUSE 11.2 (as I tried right before Thanksgiving) and Ubuntu 9.10.

While messing around with the openSUSE installation from DVD, I noticed something. Most of the time GRUB -- the Linux bootloader -- appears on a screen with a mostly green background. But occasionally, it popped up with what appears to be a holiday season theme, with a Santa-hatted penguin marching back and forth on a menu screen with an igloo in the corner. The last time it happened, I grabbed my digital camera to capture it:

It may be winter, but in computer slang, I think this counts as an "Easter egg."

I'm sad to report that the cute penguins have been the most pleasant surprise so far. My ASUS WL-138 wireless adapter isn't functioning under openSUSE or Ubuntu. When I figure that problem out, it will be worthy of another blog post. But meanwhile, I was going to share some tips for the enthusiast that is looking to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux:

1) Unless there is a need to change the starting cylinder of the Windows partition, use the "Shrink Volume" option in Windows 7 own Disk Management to create unallocated space. When I used GParted previously for resizing, Windows got confused and I had to pull out my Windows 7 DVD and re-install.

2) I'm planning to use Windows 7 as my main operating system. I did not want the Linux installers to molest the master boot record as I know from past experience that this can make Windows very cranky. So during both installs, I specified that GRUB be installed to the boot sector of the Linux root partition.

3) Once the installations completed, I used DISKPART from the Windows 7 DVD to make my original Windows XP partition (which contains my Windows 7 bootloader) active again. Then I used the utility EasyBCD to add the other operating systems to the Windows 7 bootloader menu. Experiencing the tedium of using Microsoft's BCDedit made me really appreciate EasyBCD. I found out the hard way that the release version 1.72 of EasyBCD is actually outdated. After using 1.72, I would only get a message that the operating system was missing when trying to boot one of the Linux distros. Go ahead and register on the publisher's forum to gain access to one of the version 2.0 betas. Only with the beta was I able to set up my system for a nice quad-boot among Windows XP, Windows 7, Ubuntu 9.10 and openSUSE 11.2. The list appears as part of the bootloader screen that would Identify Windows XP as only a "previous version of Windows."

4) Oddly, I noticed that EasyBCD doesn't really recognize an extended partition at all as possible to boot from, only the logical partitions within. So if you install Linux into an extended partition. be sure to install GRUB to the logical partition so EasyBCD can find it.

As I mentioned, right now neither distro has my wireless network adapter functioning. I suppose I could just string a cable across the room from my router and attempt to update the systems via my wired Ethernet adapter. Maybe that will do the trick? Or I could just keep searching for answers in the online forums. This experience is beginning to look a lot like the days when tweaking DOS and Windows 3.11 was a chore every computer user faced.