Installing Linux for the very first time :)

blairw

blairw

blairw

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Hi there, I've decided after looking through numerous threads on here that I would like to dual boot linux.

I am currently running windows home premium, but I start uni in october, computer science, and i wish to try and move towards the network side of things

So anyway on my desktop is sitting a nice iso of ubuntu, ready to be burnt to a disk!

I have looked through the thread about installing after windows, but im worried about any possible changes having vista has brought.

My computer is setup with one nice 250 gb partition after a dreadful vista installl (messed up totally).

Basicically im looking for some advice on what to expect, and how to proceed with instalation

Thanks, Blair
 
The installer's pretty self explanatory, and it'll set up Grub to detect your existing installs so you can boot them.

Make a backup of stuff you want to keep though in case you should mess up :p But there's plenty of help here if things go wrong. The Ubuntu forums are also helpful :)
 
Yeah ubuntu is an OK place to start. You will get a useable system up in no time. However i would consider a more "hardcore" distro like gentoo for instance if you want a good understanding of linux.

I didnt learn much about linux when i was using ubuntu, having used gentoo for a week or so my understanding of the operating system has increased massively I now feel much more comfortable using linux, fixing problems and customising the OS to do what i want.
 
You said you have a single 250Gb Partition on your drive.
Do you have another empty drive?
Do you have any unpartitioned space?

Linux will need it's own space for it's ext3 file system and a small swap partition as it cannot install on Windows' NTFS file system.

as someone said, I recommend you back up all your stuff first. I've heard other people recomment partition magic for resizing NTFS partitions to create some unpartitioned space on your hard drive.

good luck
 
saffyre said:
Yeah ubuntu is an OK place to start. You will get a useable system up in no time. However i would consider a more "hardcore" distro like gentoo for instance if you want a good understanding of linux.

I didnt learn much about linux when i was using ubuntu, having used gentoo for a week or so my understanding of the operating system has increased massively I now feel much more comfortable using linux, fixing problems and customising the OS to do what i want.
Click to expand...

Arch Linux is a good in between Linux distro. It has no GUI setup, ever, a binary package based system similar to Slackware, optimised for the i686 (it runs very fast), a simple source building system (abs), a very low install base (150mb), lightweight, simple, works on AMD64 and so on.
http://www.archlinux.org/

You could however try Ubuntu as a first distro, then move on to something more advanced. It's market is really the home user, using GUI as much as possible.
 
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If you want to see what's in store for you during the installation, have a look at http://shots.osdir.com

It's very straight-forward though. The only thing to watch out for, I'd say, is the partitioning... I always take the manual option rather than letting the installer do it automagically for me.
 
I'm currently on the live cd atm, with the option to install which i may well do, this seems quite cool, and very fast for running of the cd - at least if i have any questions while installing i can ask :)

The main thing i want to ask is if i can access my windows files while on ubuntu? All my media is on my windows partition :)

Thanks
 
blairw said:
The main thing i want to ask is if i can access my windows files while on ubuntu? All my media is on my windows partition :)
Click to expand...
You'll be able to read the files with no problem. In order to write to NTFS you'll need to use a solution like FUSE. Let's jump that fence when we get to it, shall we? :)
 
Ok im at the installation setup :)

I am being asked to Prepare Disk Space, which has scanned my current hard drive situation. Bareing in mind i have one hard drive, which comes out 230 GB formatted, and has windows installed which option do i take?

- Resize SCSI1 (0,0,0), partition #1 (sda) and use freed Space
- Erase entire disk SCSI1 (0,0,0)
- manually edit partition table

Im taking a wild guess that it is option one, what size of the disk should i be looking to make free - its at 72%, which i think is how much i have free space on my windows partition the now, so i should reduce this to around the 30 gb mark for linux?
 
I'd take option 3. You'll want to carve out about 10 - 20 GiB for the OS and all your files and about 512 MiB to 1 GiB for swap space (though you'll almost never sue it. On Linux the swap file is frequently on its own partition.

The main 10 -20 GiB space will be mounted at /
The swap partition will be mounted at /swap
 
haha this is where im getting nervous :D got a lot of media and such, as well as some files on my windows partition, may be time to back up some stuff to dvd i think :)

I plan on playing about with the live cd a bit more - possibly get a cheap laptop for linux use aswell :)

Also, any info on how to access my windows files on ubuntu? I cant seem them in my computer sections - which i was expecting :)
 
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On the live CD you'll have to manually mount the Windows partition. When you install to hard disk it'll probably see it on its own and automount it at boot.

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_..._manually.2C_and_allow_all_users_to_read_only
^^ That'll show you how to manually mount an NTFS partition. I suggest you mount it somewhere in your own userspace. Rather than mounting to /media/windows like they say, I'd do something like:
mkdir ~/Desktop/Windows
sudo mount /dev/hda1 ~/Desktop/Windows -t ntfs -o nls=utf8,umask=0222

The first line makes a folder in which you can mount the partition. The second mounts the partition. It assumes that your Windows partition is at /dev/hda1. If yours isn't change that part as necessary.
 
Before you do the install - have you recently defragged your drive under Windows? If not, set that running before you install anything else on the hard drive, so that it's a bit tidier. It should also improve performance as the hard drive will spend less time jumping around the place to find different sectors.

As for accessing the Windows files, it's very easy to do. You just create a directory, eg sudo mkdir /media/Windows (this will be your entry point, so to access the files you just browse to this directory and it'll be like looking at C:\ under Windows). Next, you edit a file called /etc/fstab (the file system table) and add a line that links which partition Windows is on, eg /dev/sda1 and then specify which directory will be used as the entry point - eg that /media/Windows one you created earlier. Then you add a couple more parameters about exactly how it'll access the partition, e.g. read-only, read-write, etc... then save the file and reboot. Your Windows files will then be accessible every time you boot into Linux :)

As you need to reboot for changes to /etc/fstab to take effect, you can't really do this until you've installed Linux to your hard drive, as /etc/fstab will be overwritten each you reboot when you're using a LiveCD.

HTH :)
 
I've just stuck in a gig hard drive to install linux too, leaving the other 250 for windows :)
Ill be back in a minute to ask for help im sure :)

Thanks so far!

Ok, ive got the installer running and its giving me the option of my two hard drives - ive selected the 40 gig one - and i have the option to erase the entire disk (which i guess will setup the relevant partitions on my 40 gig hard drive for the linux install) or to manually partion this hard drive ?

Remember i am a first time user and i just want a useable system along side windows.

What shall i do
 
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