Dual Boot XP Pro and Linux Ubuntu? How Do I Do It?

[Mike]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD
w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get. I don't want to use a
partition by loading
Boot Magic which is included w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one
partition now after
installing Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Malke]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB
HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD
w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get. I don't want to
use a partition by loading
Boot Magic which is included w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one
partition now after
installing Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Use Partition Magic and reduce the XP partition. From the space that is
left, create a smallish partition formatted FAT32 for sharing data
between XP and Linux. Install Ubuntu in the last partition. The Linux
bootloader will allow you to boot into either operating system.

Malke

 

[Mike]

Use Partition Magic and reduce the XP partition. From the space that is
left, create a smallish partition formatted FAT32 for sharing data
between XP and Linux. Install Ubuntu in the last partition. The Linux
bootloader will allow you to boot into either operating system.

OK, what is Ubuntu's native format? FAT32? Good point
I forgot to think about that.

 

[CS]

OK, what is Ubuntu's native format? FAT32? Good point
I forgot to think about that.

Use either ext3, or ReiserFS. Neither Ubuntu nor any version of Linux
will install to a FAT-32 partition. Malke suggested that you create a
small FAT-32 partition for sharing data. Linux distros can read and
write to FAT-32 but can not be installed to it.

 

[Pennywise]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD
w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get. I don't want to use a
partition by loading
Boot Magic which is included w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one
partition now after
installing Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Any suggestions?

Don't dual boot, check out VMplayer
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

OS http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/

I run it that way, with no problems (3Ghz)

No formatting, no boot managers, and very painless.
Plus you can copy from both systems (copy and paste text)

 

[Malke]

Don't dual boot, check out VMplayer
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

OS http://isv-image.ubuntu.com/vmware/

I run it that way, with no problems (3Ghz)

No formatting, no boot managers, and very painless.
Plus you can copy from both systems (copy and paste text)

Yes, using virtual machines is a great way to have different OS's
available without having to reboot. VM's can be a little tricky with
external peripherals, though.

For the file system, I believe the Ubuntu default is ext3, which is what
I'd use. I also prefer to use Grub (or LILO) for the bootloader so put
it in the mbr.

Another thing the OP can do if he is nervous about doing this is to
image the current drive in its entirety first so he can get back to the
way things were easily.

Mike - If you are just wanting to try Linux out and aren't sure you want
it, I suggest you download the Knoppix live cd (or dvd if you have a
fast Internet connection) and boot with it. It will give you the best
taste of what to expect. The Ubuntu/Kubuntu distros are also live cd's,
but come with almost nothing on them. Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) is the distro
you want to install after looking at Linux with Knoppix; you can
install Knoppix on the hard drive but it wasn't designed for that and
the process is far more complicated and not suggested for a Linux
newbie.

Malke

 

[Alias]

Use either ext3, or ReiserFS. Neither Ubuntu nor any version of Linux
will install to a FAT-32 partition. Malke suggested that you create a
small FAT-32 partition for sharing data. Linux distros can read and
write to FAT-32 but can not be installed to it.

How do you format it in ext3 or ReiserFS? Won't Ubuntu change the format
when you install it on an NTFS partition?

Alias

 

[C.Joseph Drayton]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD
w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get. I don't want to use a
partition by loading
Boot Magic which is included w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one
partition now after
installing Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Mike

Hi Mike,

I have a HP dv8000z that I just set up as a tri-boot.

What I did was make my DISK:0 the OS drive and use DISK:1 for all of
my data and virtual machines.

I started by creating 2 partitions on DISK:0 I made each partition
1/3 the size of the drive (36GB). I then Installed WinXPpe on the
first partition (DRV:C). Once that was installed, I then installed
WinXPpe64 on the second partition (DRV).

Once I had that all installed, I installed Mandriva 2007 to the
un-allocated space on DISK:0. Just s that you know, Mandriva 2007
recognized everything except for my Broadcomm WLAN card. The install
was automated and pain free. Since I had the disk space available, I
simply had Mandriva install everything on the DVD. I did notice that
KDE has some difficulty with the screen and leaves artifacts from
the mouse on a regular basis. I am using gNome as my GUI with no
difficulty at all.

One thing that you need to make sure of if you want all OSes on
DISK:0 is that you have to pay attention to the installer's
statement as to where it is installing to. For some odd reason,
WinXPpe64 kept wanting to install to the first partition on DISK:1.

Because I am a programmer this machine is a development machine and
I need to test how my applications will run under different OSes.

On DISK:1, I have created 8 partitions 5 of which are just 2GB
partitions that I have installed various 'virtual machines' on. My
preference for VMs, is VMWare player. I do also use the Microsoft
Virtual PC 2004. So now I have FreeDOS, Win95, Win98se, WinME and
Win2000pe in virtual machines.

My dv8000z runs a little slow with 2GB of RAM, but when you consider
that I might have 5 VMs open and running at one time that is to be
expected.

Ciao . . . C.Joseph

"When hope is lost . . . the spirit dies."
-- Lao Tzu

http://blog.tlerma.com/

 

[Heimat]

CS napisał(a):

Use either ext3, or ReiserFS. Neither Ubuntu nor any version of Linux
will install to a FAT-32 partition. Malke suggested that you create a
small FAT-32 partition for sharing data. Linux distros can read and
write to FAT-32 but can not be installed to it.

slackware will do install to fat32... it will create one big file (from
windows's point of view) being virtual filesystem

 

[CS]

slackware will do install to fat32... it will create one big file (from
windows's point of view) being virtual filesystem

So will VMWare and other virtual machine software packages but that's
not what we're speaking of. Linux must be installed to a Linux native
file system.

 

[Heimat]

CS napisał(a):

So will VMWare and other virtual machine software packages but that's
not what we're speaking of. Linux must be installed to a Linux native
file system.

sure, yet slackware is a linux distro. one of the oldest as a matter of
fact. Anyway that's not discussion about linux so I shall add no more...

 

[arachnid]

Hi, I just loaded XP Pro on a Dell SX270 2.70GHZ, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD.
I've decided I want to set up the PC for dual boot w/ Ubuntu. I can
partition the HDD w/ partition Magic or whatever recommendations I get.
I don't want to use a partition by loading Boot Magic which is included
w/ Partition Magic. The HDD is just one partition now after installing
Ubuntu I want to create another partition for XP data.

Any suggestions?

Start by backing up your data. )

Then there are two ways to go. The easy way (mine) would be to defragment
XP, resize it, create the Windows data partition you want, and leave the
rest of the HD unpartitioned. When you install Ubuntu, one of the options
will be to install to the unused space. The installer will take care of
the messy details of creating Linux partitions and assigning mountpoints.

The harder way, if you want more control over your Linux partitions or
just want to understand more of what's going on, is to follow the detailed
instructions here:

<http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html>

If you're installing Ubuntu 6.10 then you really don't need to download
the 120-megabyte System Rescue CD recommended by the article, although
it's a handy thing to have. Ubuntu 6.10 comes with a fine partition
manager, gparted. To run it just click on System->Administration->Gnome
Partition Manager. Remember to reboot between modifying partitions and
installing Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 6.06 also comes with gparted but it's an older version that
occasionally had problems resizing NTFS partitions. If you're installing
6.06, you should either use the partitioning tools recommended in the
article above or download the 30-megabyte bootable gparted ISO from
http://gparted.sourceforge.net.

If you run out of primary partitions (only 4 allowed), it'll be helpful
to know that Linux lives very happily in an extended partition.

 

[Mike]

Use either ext3, or ReiserFS. Neither Ubuntu nor any version of Linux
will install to a FAT-32 partition. Malke suggested that you create a
small FAT-32 partition for sharing data. Linux distros can read and
write to FAT-32 but can not be installed to it.

ext3, or ReiserFS are they formats that I'm not familar with? though ext3
sounds familar.

 

[Heimat]

Mike napisał(a):

ext3, or ReiserFS are they formats that I'm not familar with? though ext3
sounds familar.

yes, both are filesystem format used by linux. ext3 is more popular I
think (there was ext2 first, ext3 has file journaling compared to ext2).
Soon, ext4 is to be released.
ReiserFS may be a bad choice because main developer is under arrest so
future of that filesystem is uncertain.

 

[Mike]

yes, both are filesystem format used by linux. ext3 is more popular I
think (there was ext2 first, ext3 has file journaling compared to ext2).
Soon, ext4 is to be released.
ReiserFS may be a bad choice because main developer is under arrest so
future of that filesystem is uncertain.

What should I use to partition the hdd? Some years ago at work I used a
freeware german partitioning
program to size partitions on NT boxes but don't remember the program's
name.

 

[Mike]

(e-mail address removed) wrote:
Mike - If you are just wanting to try Linux out and aren't sure you want
it, I suggest you download the Knoppix live cd (or dvd if you have a
fast Internet connection) and boot with it. It will give you the best
taste of what to expect. The Ubuntu/Kubuntu distros are also live cd's,
but come with almost nothing on them. Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) is the distro
you want to install after looking at Linux with Knoppix; you can
install Knoppix on the hard drive but it wasn't designed for that and
the process is far more complicated and not suggested for a Linux
newbie.

Malke

Hi Malke, I've been using a Ubuntu live CD. I'm impressed that it
identified
the hardware on my Dell SX270 2.7ghz 2gbram and 80gb hdd. On my p2p
network/
dsl router it connects to the internet, I play solitare and wrote a doc. bUT
I know nothing
about the OS.

 

[Heimat]

Mike napisał(a):

What should I use to partition the hdd? Some years ago at work I used a
freeware german partitioning
program to size partitions on NT boxes but don't remember the program's
name.

first it depends on current disc state. If there is no data on it you
can use anything avaiable, you can run any LiveCD Linux and use command
line tools like
- fdisk (linux's not MS's)
- cfdisk (same as above but with nicer pseudoGUI)
- DiscDruid (on most fedora CDs, GUI)
- many onther, depending on distro
after partitioning there are linux tools to format these partitions like
- mkfs.ext2 (formats partition to ext2, -j switch formats to ext3)
- mkfs.ntfs
and many others. In fact all are wrappers to mkfs (man mkfs to see all
avaiable options). You can find man pages online. Just google

If there are data on disc using parted is reasonable.
parted is opensource tool similar to partition magic, you can download
bootable liveCD with gparted which has nice GUI (parted itself is
command line)
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

 

[arachnid]

ext3, or ReiserFS are they formats that I'm not familar with? though ext3
sounds familar.

Ext2 is the old standard Linux filesystem, sort of the Linux equivalent of
NTFS. Ext3 is a new journaled filesystem that is compatible with Ext2. A
journaled filesystem uses a track on the hard drive as a write cache. If
there's a system crash, the data on the track can survive the shutdown and
will continue to be written to the normal filesystem after a reboot. This
makes the filesystem rather robust.

ReiserFS is another journaled filesystem. It has its advantages but since
Ext3 is the default with Ubuntu, it's best to stay with that.

Wikipedia has a good description of Ext2, Ext3, and journaled
filesystems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext3

 

[Mike]

Hi Mike,

I have a HP dv8000z that I just set up as a tri-boot.

What I did was make my DISK:0 the OS drive and use DISK:1 for all of
my data and virtual machines.

I started by creating 2 partitions on DISK:0 I made each partition
1/3 the size of the drive (36GB). I then Installed WinXPpe on the
first partition (DRV:C). Once that was installed, I then installed
WinXPpe64 on the second partition (DRV).

Once I had that all installed, I installed Mandriva 2007 to the
un-allocated space on DISK:0. Just s that you know, Mandriva 2007
recognized everything except for my Broadcomm WLAN card. The install
was automated and pain free. Since I had the disk space available, I
simply had Mandriva install everything on the DVD. I did notice that
KDE has some difficulty with the screen and leaves artifacts from
the mouse on a regular basis. I am using gNome as my GUI with no
difficulty at all.

One thing that you need to make sure of if you want all OSes on
DISK:0 is that you have to pay attention to the installer's
statement as to where it is installing to. For some odd reason,
WinXPpe64 kept wanting to install to the first partition on DISK:1.

Because I am a programmer this machine is a development machine and
I need to test how my applications will run under different OSes.

On DISK:1, I have created 8 partitions 5 of which are just 2GB
partitions that I have installed various 'virtual machines' on. My
preference for VMs, is VMWare player. I do also use the Microsoft
Virtual PC 2004. So now I have FreeDOS, Win95, Win98se, WinME and
Win2000pe in virtual machines.

My dv8000z runs a little slow with 2GB of RAM, but when you consider
that I might have 5 VMs open and running at one time that is to be
expected.

Ciao . . . C.Joseph

Hi C.Joseph, thanks for the clear explanation. What are you using for a
boot manager or how do you select which OS to boot to?

 

[Mike]

o)

Then there are two ways to go. The easy way (mine) would be to defragment
XP, resize it, create the Windows data partition you want, and leave the
rest of the HD unpartitioned. When you install Ubuntu, one of the options
will be to install to the unused space. The installer will take care of
the messy details of creating Linux partitions and assigning mountpoints.

The harder way, if you want more control over your Linux partitions or
just want to understand more of what's going on, is to follow the detailed
instructions here:

<http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html>

If you're installing Ubuntu 6.10 then you really don't need to download
the 120-megabyte System Rescue CD recommended by the article, although
it's a handy thing to have. Ubuntu 6.10 comes with a fine partition
manager, gparted. To run it just click on System->Administration->Gnome
Partition Manager. Remember to reboot between modifying partitions and
installing Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 6.06 also comes with gparted but it's an older version that
occasionally had problems resizing NTFS partitions. If you're installing
6.06, you should either use the partitioning tools recommended in the
article above or download the 30-megabyte bootable gparted ISO from
http://gparted.sourceforge.net.

If you run out of primary partitions (only 4 allowed), it'll be helpful
to know that Linux lives very happily in an extended partition.

I was going to install ubuntu 6.06 thinking 6.10 might not be as stable as
6.06.
I'll check out the links.