Dual boot - XP and Ubuntu 6.10

babyface uk · 15 Jan 2007 at 12:42

Afternoon all,

I'm looking to get a dual boot system for folding@home post:http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17678282 but I mucked it up.
I'm looking for a idiots guide ( I know nothing about linux ) to get a dual boot system. atm its windows on a 36gig raptor (C) and then a second 160 gig drive (D) with other bits on and i'm looking to get ubuntu-6.10-desktop-amd64.iso on D: on a partion after the bits already on there. but when I tried from the iso cd i told it to repartion the D: drive for a 60gig space for Ubuntu it it also asked me for a seperate partition for the swap space so I gave that a 20gig partion and off it went. at the end of install it asked me to remove the cd but then my keyboard stopped working ( I assume I need a ps2 keybord not a usb one?) so I had to hard reset the pc, went into bios and set drive D as the first boot drive but it just keeps booting into windows.

If you guys need any more info, please ask but i am at work so it will be from memory.

Many thanks

Babyface UK

dirtydog · 15 Jan 2007 at 13:26

Did the installation process install the bootloader?

You don't need to touch your BIOS settings; you will continue to boot off your first partition after Linux is installed. You will get a boot menu asking you to choose between Ubuntu and Windows. If the installer crashed before it installed the bootloader (grub) then Ubuntu will not boot from the hard drive.

Dj_Jestar · 15 Jan 2007 at 13:54

As above, the Ubuntu installation does it all for you.

babyface uk · 15 Jan 2007 at 13:57

dirtydog said:
Did the installation process install the bootloader?

You don't need to touch your BIOS settings; you will continue to boot off your first partition after Linux is installed. You will get a boot menu asking you to choose between Ubuntu and Windows. If the installer crashed before it installed the bootloader (grub) then Ubuntu will not boot from the hard drive.

not sure, when it was asking what to install it gave me 4 boxes, 2 had media something or other in them, 1 had "/" in it and the 4th was blank, I put "swap" on the 4th as it asked for a seperate partition for the swap file.

on reboot no boot menu - straight to xp.

Ta

Babyface UK

Combat squirrel · 15 Jan 2007 at 23:13

Dj_Jestar said:
As above, the Ubuntu installation does it all for you.

Not so, im about to try and install ubuntu on my XP laptop, however, last 3 times on 2 different machines my XP install fubarred and I never got a menu at the start asking what OS I want to load(it just loaded Ubuntu straight away), i installed ubuntu on the same drive and partition as windows, does it need be on a diff partition or am i doing something wrong ?

gumbald · 15 Jan 2007 at 23:19

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing

Tada

Have a look through that for full guide to installing, see if you've missed anything. The whole psychocats website is a good resource once you're up and running too.

Combat squirrel · 16 Jan 2007 at 00:10

gumbald said:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing

Tada Have a look through that for full guide to installing, see if you've missed anything. The whole psychocats website is a good resource once you're up and running too.

so thats basically saying, plonk the cd in, select auto for partioning and leave it, should that b ok ?

gumbald · 16 Jan 2007 at 00:13

Providing you've got a swap partition created and and ext2/3 partition for it to install to, when you choose "manually edit partitions", and follow through to the mount points, it should automatically pick them up. Also should get your NTFS/FAT32 partitions as mounts like /media/hda1 etc.

If you select auto partitioning, I think it will want to erase an entire HD... Not sure on that one, I always manually do them.

Cake · 16 Jan 2007 at 00:27

I just installed Ubuntu 6.10 a few days ago. Best way to do it is to repartition one of your hard drives so there is a chunk of unpartitioned space.

Since I've just built my rig what I did was use 75GB for Windows partition, created another 150GB partition for all my data and left 20GB unpartitioned. If your HD has no unpartitioned space use a tool like Partition Magic to resize your partitions (make sure you back up everything first).

Then boot from the Ubuntu disc. It should boot in LiveCD mode (that is, it'll boot the whole OS from the CD) and there should be an "Install" shortcut sitting on the desktop.

Double click the icon and it'll start the install process.
Now, when it asks you where to install, select the unpartitioned space you prepared earlier.

Choose a decent size for your root directory (this would be "/"). Anything over 10GB is good enough, but it depends on your usage etc.

Your swap partition should be approximately twice the amount of RAM your PC has (20GB is a bit overkill for a swap partition, mind you). So if you have 2GB of RAM, 4GB swap partition.

The install process will do everything else for you and on reboot, grub should detect your Windows OS and give you the option to boot into it.

Also, I did all this with a USB keyboard, so no, you don't need a PS/2 keyboard for it.

Hope this helps.

porkrind · 16 Jan 2007 at 12:14

i dual boot xp and ubuntu

I am conducting an experiment, I have decided to try and use ubuntu as my only OS for a month rather than just dabble with it as I had before. So far its been ok with a few minor problems and I can say honestly I don't miss XP at all since I found Nexuiz to cater for any gamming urges I have no need to reboot this wonderfull OS .

Ubuntu + XGL+berly is a pleasure to use .

Combat squirrel · 16 Jan 2007 at 12:28

So ok from all that I can gather, partition out some HD space with partition magic or something, boot ubuntu, tell it to install to the empty partition, all should be ok and I can dual boot ?