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Dual booting XP + Ubuntu


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Just been asked to upgrade/re-build/set up a family machine which will have 2 separate H/Ds. This is so they can use Windows as normal, but his son wants to experiment with Ubuntu as well. The intention is for XP and Ubuntu 7.04 each to be installed separately on their own H/D.

Windows is easy. My plan was to split the 200 GB XP one into 3 partitions - 40GB C:\ for Windows + Programs, 120GB D:\ for Data, 40GB E:\ for Images.

But - does the proposed Ubuntu 80 GB H/D need to be partitioned (with a separate partition for a swap file) ? :unknw:

Next, what order is it best for the O/S to be installed in ? (The workings of the mysterious Grub are a complete unknown to me :0 )

What might be easier ? (perhaps) .... is that he's got a copy of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 which includes Acronis Boot Manager for me to use, but neither of us have any experience of it or Linux !

Any comments/advice most welcome :flowers:

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......... and then I came across Wubi

http://wubi-installer.org/

Wubi is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application. If you heard about Linux and Ubuntu, if you wanted to try them but you were afraid, this is for you.

Anyone tried this ?

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Just been asked to upgrade/re-build/set up a family machine which will have 2 separate H/Ds. This is so they can use Windows as normal, but his son wants to experiment with Ubuntu as well. The intention is for XP and Ubuntu 7.04 each to be installed separately on their own H/D.

But - does the proposed Ubuntu 80 GB H/D need to be partitioned (with a separate partition for a swap file) ? :unknw:

Yes and yes...!

format the 80 Gb drive as "EXT2" and create roughly a 512 Mb swap space ( that is a seperate partition... )

Next, what order is it best for the O/S to be installed in ? (The workings of the mysterious Grub are a complete unknown to me :0 )

well.? that is kind of hard to answer.

if you are going to have these two systems on seperate drives then what you should do is install windows first , install Win on the master drive and when completely finished with that turn off the computer , open it up , and remove that hard drive..

next , install the 80 Gb drive as master and install <shivers> Ubuntu , after ubuntu has finished and is bootable ( making sure it installed Grub to the MBR of that drive ) shutdown the 'puter again , open it up "again" , set the 200 Gb drive as slave and place it back into the computer in line with the 80 Gb drive..

like this ==> 80 Gb drive=master , 200 Gb drive = slave

now turn the computer back on and ubuntu should bootup , now all you have to do is re-install grub to make the winblows drive active..

sudo grub

At grub prompt - root (hd0,1) - then hit enter

At grub prompt - setup (hd0) - then hit enter

At grub prompt - quit


(hd0) is the MBR

(hd0,0) would be first partition on first drive, hda1

you should be able to figure out what to do in the ubuntu terminal from reading that above... :D , but without knowing exactly what your partitions are labled i cannot instruct you further..

What might be easier ? (perhaps) .... is that he's got a copy of Acronis Disk Director Suite 10 which includes Acronis Boot Manager for me to use, but neither of us have any experience of it or Linux !

well now you're just making things difficult...

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Now I know there are going to be howls of protest, follower by gales of laughter (and derision) but, from my own experience, my advice, based on a tremendous depth of ignorance, would be to stick to two machines until the second unfamiliar OS becomes totally familiar. Ubuntu 7 is very user friendly, and the more I use it and (nearly) understand it, the more I am impressed with it, but I would not want to risk dual booting, even on two HDs. I tried VM ware, which was supposed to be a doddle, (on two different flavours of Linux) but I finished up eventually getting into such a mess I had to have a clean sweep.

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but I would not want to risk dual booting, even on two HDs. I tried VM ware, which was supposed to be a doddle, (on two different flavours of Linux) but I finished up eventually getting into such a mess I had to have a clean sweep.

there is no risk if it is done right , i am currently triple booting on one hard drive...

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As far as dual booting XP & Ubuntu is concerned there is no need to mess with grub.

Just install XP first, reboot, (after setting BIOS to boot of the CD), put the Ubuntu disk in, allow it to load, then click the install icon.

When it asks where to install to point it at hdb1, accept the default partitions,

It will see your Windows OS and automatically set grub up during the install.

After it has finished, reboot and you will have a choice of which OS to boot into.

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As far as dual booting XP & Ubuntu is concerned there is no need to mess with grub.

Just install XP first, reboot, (after setting BIOS to boot of the CD), put the Ubuntu disk in, allow it to load, then click the install icon.

When it asks where to install to point it at hdb1, accept the default partitions,

It will see your Windows OS and automatically set grub up during the install.

After it has finished, reboot and you will have a choice of which OS to boot into.

Alan,

:D Thanks for this reply, it seems so much simpler than the somewhat complicated method jason.b.c suggested ? :)

Just one question - re. how Linux calls things. Presumably hdb1 is hard drive 2 and hdb0 is hard drive 1 - if Ubuntu is to be pointed at hdb1 ? Or does the hdb0, hdb1, hdb2 etc refer to partitions ?

I'm just trying out Ubuntu 7.04 myself on my old test PC (1ghz Duron; 256MB PC133; 32MB Nvidia Riva TNT graphics + an old 6 gig H/D) before I bite the bullet for my friend

I have to say that It is most impressive !

In half an hour, it installed itself, and found all my devices and then after connecting to my router, I've updated it, added some applications (k3b, Thunderbird) and I've even managed to download copy and burn another copy of the distro as an experiment.

I shall be having some fun playing with this during the week.

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Alan,

:D Thanks for this reply, it seems so much simpler than the somewhat complicated method jason.b.c suggested ? :)

it isn't complicated...! , not unless you really want to tempt fate at take the chance of losing everything you have in your windows system...?

because the ubuntu installer isn't all that good , the method i suggested is the safest...

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Jason, to me altering grub is no problem, but to someone starting out on Linux, it will seem complicated.

I have installed Ubuntu & Linux Mint onto quite a few colleagues computers, the way I explained to Boris and have never had a problem.

Your first drive will be listed as /dev/hda, and your second drive will be listed as /dev/hdb.

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Just one question - re. how Linux calls things. Presumably hdb1 is hard drive 2 and hdb0 is hard drive 1 - if Ubuntu is to be pointed at hdb1 ? Or does the hdb0, hdb1, hdb2 etc refer to partitions ?

yes hdb0,hdb1 are partitions

here is what you do:

back up any important data

install windows first

do yourself a favour and format the windows data partitions as FAT32 (this way you can easily share them with Linux)

boot into Ubuntu (i assume you have the live CD)

run this command:

sudo fdisk -l

(it's a lower case 'L')

you will get an output like this (this is my fdisk):

   Device Boot	  Start		 End	  Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1 1 3824 30716248+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 3825 5401 12667252+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 5402 5472 570307+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda4 * 5473 9726 34168832 7 HPFS/NTFS

By looking at the file system and partition size you will be able to identify your partitions and how Linux calls them.

Click on the 'install' icon in Ubuntu

Install Ubuntu

Usually it's better to create a /home partition but it's not crucial.

make the swap partition twice the size of your memory

and have fun!

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A quick follow up to Seshomaru Samma posting.

This is what mine looks like for a dual boot XP Linux, XP on the first HD and Linux on the second.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 * 2 19457 156280320 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/hdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hdb1 * 1 19080 153260068+ 83 Linux

/dev/hdb2 19081 19457 3028252+ 5 Extended

/dev/hdb5 19081 19457 3028221 82 Linux swap / Solaris

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Success ! :)

Went like a dream and they are very happy.

Ubuntu even recognised their Hercules XT4000 3D Prophet 64mb PCI graphics card - and XP had (initial) problems with that !

Thanks for all the help and advice.

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Alan

I don't understand how ATI or Nvidia drivers would work with this Hercules card ? It has a Kyro chipset.

I found this link for Kyro PowerVR Linux drivers, but the "specific installers" it has don't mention Ubuntu.

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Having had to deal with a number of complete disasters caused by people trying to set up a dual (or more) computer system, I now strongly recommend that they use a drive caddy and have each O/S on a separate hard drive which they can install as and when they want.

The sort of thing I mean is this click here.

I've set up several machines now using this method with complete success.

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Having had to deal with a number of complete disasters caused by people trying to set up a dual (or more) computer system, I now strongly recommend that they use a drive caddy and have each O/S on a separate hard drive which they can install as and when they want.

-pops-

They only have 2 x 5.25" bays which are already filled with 2 optical drives (CD/RW + DVD-ROM) - so a caddy is not an option. They are also a bit strapped for cash (which is why they have only a PCI graphics card) :) The onboard graphics appears defunct and there is no AGP slot.

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Having had to deal with a number of complete disasters caused by people trying to set up a dual (or more) computer system, I now strongly recommend that they use a drive caddy and have each O/S on a separate hard drive which they can install as and when they want.

-pops-

They only have 2 x 5.25" bays which are already filled with 2 optical drives (CD/RW + DVD-ROM) - so a caddy is not an option. They are also a bit strapped for cash (which is why they have only a PCI graphics card) :) The onboard graphics appears defunct and there is no AGP slot.

besides that , when actually done right and if you actually "get your hands dirty" then there would be no possible problems and therefor no reason at all for any drive caddys or backup measures..

the "dual boot" environment is a complete differant animal in Linux/Grub...

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Perhaps my response came through in a confusing way.

What I meant was that I recommend to people that I've dealt with, not yours, should go for a caddy option.

If you have it going, excellent!

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they only have RPM packages(for Red Hat distros)

Ubuntu's native packages are DEB (since it's Debian based)

You can install RPMs on Ubuntu using an application called 'alien'

There are detailed insturctions in the link I gave you.

However if it's working fine , perhaps its better to leave that way....

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