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Ubuntu dual boot question
mookaloid - 4/7/07 at 08:39 PM

Just thought I'd try this ubuntu thingy....

I'm running it as I type this (from the cd not a full installation)

Question for all you Linux users - can I load ubuntu on my pc alongside my existing XP installation or would I have to flatten my hard drive and reinstall XP to do it?

What would I ned to do to have a choice of O/S at boot up?

Cheers

Mark

Jubal - 4/7/07 at 08:58 PM

I dual boot Ubuntu. But because the PC is used by other people I hide the Ubuntu installation by booting from a floppy. During the install process it will sort out some disk space and the dual booting for you so you can just go ahead if you wish. But I prefer to have some more control so created the disk space manually and intervened in the boot loader setup to install it to floppy.

mookaloid - 4/7/07 at 09:11 PM

I think I understood that

I don't want to use a floppy as it's only me who uses this pc.

Are you saying that I can just go ahead and install ubuntu on my pc and it work out that windows is already on here, then create a new partition and install itself in that? if so, at what point do I get to choose which O/S boots up?

Cheers

Mark

mookaloid - 4/7/07 at 09:26 PM

quote:
Originally posted by CaLviNx
quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
I think I understood that

I don't want to use a floppy as it's only me who uses this pc.

Are you saying that I can just go ahead and install ubuntu on my pc and it work out that windows is already on here, then create a new partition and install itself in that? if so, at what point do I get to choose which O/S boots up?

Cheers

Mark


Basically yes.


Any thing else I should know? - I really don't want to Sh*g my windows installation up

Cheers

Mark

Jubal - 4/7/07 at 09:26 PM

Yeah, you'll get a menu at boot to select the OS. It defaults to the ubuntu install but you can change that.

Jubal - 4/7/07 at 09:30 PM

quote:
Originally posted by mookaloidAny thing else I should know? - I really don't want to Sh*g my windows installation up

Cheers

Mark


Like anything, back up any data you can't afford to lose before you start.

Hellfire - 4/7/07 at 10:08 PM

Following this thread with interest, as I've just sorted myself a new eSATA drive...

Let me know how you go Mark...


Steve

orbital - 5/7/07 at 12:24 AM

quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
Just thought I'd try this ubuntu thingy....

I'm running it as I type this (from the cd not a full installation)

Question for all you Linux users - can I load ubuntu on my pc alongside my existing XP installation or would I have to flatten my hard drive and reinstall XP to do it?

What would I ned to do to have a choice of O/S at boot up?

Cheers

Mark


If I remember correctly Ubuntu installs the grub loader by default if it detects a Windows partition of any sort (which threw me when I installed it as I like to be asked these things!) One thing you will have to do if you haven't got a spare partition is resize your current Windows partition to give Ubuntu some space to live. I think Ubuntu has a resizing tool as part of it's install partitioner (I used partition Magic as I had it installed anyway). Once it's all installed you will be given a menu on bootup and you can choose which OS to use. If nothing is pressed it will default to Ubuntu. In the release of Ubuntu I installed you could change the menu and what OS was booted first by editting the /boot/grub/menu.lst file (nice and none standard that).

I never really got on with Ubuntu to be honest, always seemed very picky about what gfx card it would use and had an annoying habit of randomly not starting the x server for some reason. I use Redhat at work (although Sun Solaris is my main way of earning a living) so it seemed natural to use Fedora linux at home (this replaced the free distro of Red Hat Linux when they pulled it). Well that's my 2p anywhoo

Cheers

Dave

britishtrident - 5/7/07 at 07:59 AM

Yes you resize the partition before you start, then the install looks after the rest.
Make sure you have a windows boot cd with FDISK on it then if things go wrong boot from the windows Cd and at the dos prompt type "fdisk /mbr " and this should put things back to normal.

However you can do differently
(1) If you have a spare hard disk and your PC allows choice of boot device at boot (press F8 at boot) you can install to the second hard disk.
This has the major advantage of not requiring you Windows install disk to to be altered in anyway.
(
2) You can run Linux from within Windows as a virtual machine --- much simpler than you might think using Innotek VirtualBox

(3) You can run Windows from within Linux as a virtual machine -- this requires a mod to Windows.


Finally I really recommend using Mint Linux in place of Ubuntu, Mint is a fork from Ubuntu but it is set up for use as a desktop PC and has all the multimedia codec stuff left out of Ubuntu AND has much better support for Wifi devices.

It also has a carefully chosen selection of the very latest software all ready configure for Mint that can quickly be installed via Mint install.
Of course synaptic is also installed and all the Ubuntu & Debian software is available.

[Edited on 5/7/07 by britishtrident]

Jubal - 5/7/07 at 11:27 AM

I've not tried Mint and it is annoying that ubuntu doesn't have flash etc ready to roll so may give that a go. However, inspired by this thread I trashed my old install (which took me ages to get working right) and installed ubuntu 7.04 this morning and checked through the process.

It will offer to resize your partitions and if all you want is a dual boot and you only have one disk then go for it. If you have a couple of disks or more you need to take care what you do when given the choices by the installer. I know my way around partitions and even I was stumped first time by the options on offer under the manual configuration. Eventually I decided to delete the existing Linux partitions and then used the "Largest continuous free space" option on the installer (which had not been there before as there was no free space). Went like a charm from there.

After the partitioning is done you are presented with a summary and at that point you can select where to install the boot loader under advanced options.

mookaloid - 5/7/07 at 01:23 PM

Thanks for all this guys, I have a Dell Precision workstation with twin 75GB hard drives the second drive has about 15 GB of data on it giving 60 GB free space. I guess I can install it there.

I have Fdisk so i'll keep that handy.

Cheers

Mark

Jubal - 5/7/07 at 10:40 PM

quote:
Originally posted by britishtrident
Finally I really recommend using Mint Linux in place of Ubuntu, Mint is a fork from Ubuntu but it is set up for use as a desktop PC and has all the multimedia codec stuff left out of Ubuntu AND has much better support for Wifi devices.

It also has a carefully chosen selection of the very latest software all ready configure for Mint that can quickly be installed via Mint install.
Of course synaptic is also installed and all the Ubuntu & Debian software is available.

[Edited on 5/7/07 by britishtrident]


Good call on Mint. Very nice indeed. If Windows didn't rule the world and folk had no experience of Microsoft you could put this on people's desktops and they would just get on with it.

britishtrident - 6/7/07 at 06:58 AM

quote:
Originally posted by mookaloid
Thanks for all this guys, I have a Dell Precision workstation with twin 75GB hard drives the second drive has about 15 GB of data on it giving 60 GB free space. I guess I can install it there.

I have Fdisk so i'll keep that handy.

Cheers

Mark


If your computer allow you to select which disk it starts at boot (usually press F8), to install disconnect the first hard drive install mint (durring or before install shrink the Windows patition). Then test the system out.

If OK recconect the first hard drive and at boot you can select Linux or windows by pressing F8

Jubal - 6/7/07 at 09:44 PM

Tried Mint on a Dell laptop today, flushed with the success of running it on a desktop. No matter what I try I can't get WPA2 as an option in Network Manager. It should just work according to the web but no such luck. I only get WEP options. Boo.

Jubal - 7/7/07 at 11:05 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Jubal
Tried Mint on a Dell laptop today, flushed with the success of running it on a desktop. No matter what I try I can't get WPA2 as an option in Network Manager. It should just work according to the web but no such luck. I only get WEP options. Boo.
i

Dunno what I did wrong first time round but a re-install fixed it. Now working happily on my laptop.