Quick Ubuntu Install Question

[davestar_delux]

Hey I went to install Ubuntu there and it came to the partitioning bit and asked me whethere I wanted two options

Guided - use entire disk

or

Manual

I tried manual as I want to keep my Vista install for now but it was showing up 4 partitions, 2 NTFS, 1 fat 32 and 1 fat something else. I don't know what to do at this stage.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

You need to shrink one of the NTFS partitions, or, assuming that they're big enough and you're OK with losing whatever data they contain, nuke one or more of the others. When you have space you can then partition as ext3 and a small (about 1-2 GiB) area formatted as swap.

 

[davestar_delux]

If I use the Ubuntu installer to shrink the NTFS partition I have Vista on it wont lose me any data? I try to shrink it in Vista but it becomes unresponsive (possibly due to a couple of bad sectors on the disk).

 

[BillytheImpaler]

That's the way it's supposed to work, but nothing in life is certain. If you've got a bad disk the risk is greater, methinks. If you have any irreplaceable data I suggest you backup before doing anything.

 

[davestar_delux]

Thanks for your help Billy, I have just put it on the free space for now. Next step getting wireless Internet working.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Open up a terminal window and type in
lspci
and paste the results here. It'll tell us what wireless chipset is in use. Maybe we can help.

 

[JC]

I found this really useful when I moved to linux and kept my vista install:

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm

 

[davestar_delux]

I've done lspci and the network controller is:

Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI (rev 01).

 

[davestar_delux]

I've googled about and think this is what I'm going to do -

First disable the current driver, which won't work with this card :

echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Then install ndiswrapper:

sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils

Then insert my Windows driver:

sudo ndiswrapper -i windows_driver_INF_file

Verify that it worked :

sudo ndiswrapper -l

Then configure ndiswrapper :

sudo ndiswrapper -m

Verify everything went well :

dmesg | tail

 

[davestar_delux]

ndiswrapper-utils couldn't be found. And I have no wired Internet connection on that comp so is there a way I can download this on Windows and put it on a pendrive?

 

[davestar_delux]

1. echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
2. sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
3. sudo ndiswrapper -i windows_driver_INF_file
4. sudo ndiswrapper -l
5. sudo ndiswrapper -m
6. dmesg | tail

Okay, done the above, first 4 steps went fine.

Step 5 it says: module config already contains alias directive.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

My guess is that ndiswrapper has already put a module in the kernel which you need to remove. I'll be more helpful in the morning when I won't be quite so full of cheer and 18-year-old Scotch whisky.

 

[davestar_delux]

My guess is that ndiswrapper has already put a module in the kernel which you need to remove. I'll be more helpful in the morning when I won't be quite so full of cheer and 18-year-old Scotch whisky.

Appreciated. How do I go about removing that?

I googled about a bit and tried this

sudo depmod -a
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

changed nothing lol.