Installing Ubuntu onto a WinXP laptop.

311

I am downloading ubuntu 7.04 at the moment ,I hope to install it over win xp thats on my laptop.
Is this possible or wise thing to do ? ,it's a 1.6 centrino 512ram .

I can't install on my other machine because everyone else uses it and they are not very pc friendly.

Thanks for your time,
Brian.

feylya

Best way would be to format the entire drive while installing Ubuntu. Make sure you backup all your data to DVD/other computer.

311

feylya wrote:

Best way would be to format the entire drive while installing Ubuntu. Make sure you backup all your data to DVD/other computer.

Is that the only way ? ,I was hoping not .
When you say the best way ,do you mean for ubuntu or for my machine ?

feylya

To get Ubuntu on your machine. Do you want to keep XP as well as Ubuntu?

MarkR

You can dual boot xp and ubuntu easily. Feisty can resize your xp ntfs partition and create space for ubuntu.

Check here for help with partitioning, and here

311

I'd like to have xp on the machine with ubuntu ,more so as a backup rather than an option.
I need to get some stuff done on the net ,I think ubuntu would keep me busy and focussed on doing stuff properly ,without all the nick nacks windows has.

Thanks Mark for the links ,I'll check them out.

K!LL!@N

I set up a dual boot last week.
Had a problem with the GUI install at first so switched to the alternate text based installation.
Ubuntu wasn't able to resize my partitions unfortunately but I used GParted and it worked a treat.

Killian

311

I'm not sure how to use gparted ,I'm almost ready to start installing now

Heres a clip of a post from a link I got from mark ,

Install Windows first.
Use GParted (get the LiveCD) to re-partition hard drive:
-resize Windows partition down to 25GB. I'd reccomend even smaller if you don't mind installing your Program Files to another partition
-make a 10GB partition for Ubunut (ext3). You won't need any more than that.
-have a 0.5-1GB swap
-have the rest (~40GB) be one FAT32 partition

In Windows, change My Documents to point to a folder on your FAT32 partition. Then, just remember to save most of your stuff to the FAT32 partition--a good idea, so it'll be accessible in both Windows and Ubuntu.

I know I'm not saying much new, just was hoping to throw in my two bits.



Does the above sound like the best way to go about it ,it sounds easy enough.

Thanks

MarkR

That looks fine. You use gpart from the live cd then once your partitions are ready (or even if you just create some empty space) you're ready to go.

311

Had a problem already ,I should be able to sort it though.
When I downloaded gpart ,it was from a german mirror site and in dutch.
It installed ,but when windows loads up I get a blue screen on startup ,something about a w r .sys file,the page dissapears in less than a second.

So I'm downloading gpart at my other machine ,hopefully it will be in english this time ,I've chosen Dublin as the mirror site.

311

I couldn't get ubuntu to work on my laptop ,my laptop has a wireless on/off switch that needs a driver to work , I couldn't get the driver loaded into ubunutu ,so I quit trying to install it.

I have a machine coming back to me in a while that I loaned to someone ,so I might stick ubuntu on that and see how things pan out.

Thanks for the help,
Brian.

galactus

I have UBUNTU on a crappy laptop at home (I'm determined to make my home a M$-free zone this year). Will buy a DELL PC with Linux when they are availiable.

But I've just started playing around with this at work as well. If you want to try out UBUNTU have a look at VMWARE Player:
http://www.vmware.com/download/player/

You can then download appliances that run in the player eg UBUNTU:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/ubuntu.html

So you can get your feet wet with Linux and then make the swop over when you are ready

311

I had ubuntu running sweet ,nice and smooth . It's just my laptop has a switch for turning off the wifi and it needs a driver loaded to operate.
I found a driver for it ok ,but I can't get the damn thing loaded . I'm not familiar with the linux commands . they are make install and make etc ,I'm used to msdos from years back ,so I kind of get the jist of some of the operations.
It looks like windows is finally going to get a death from me ,I shall be free from the nightmare that is one mans dream (a nightmare really:D )

skyhighflyer

_Brian_ wrote:

I had ubuntu running sweet ,nice and smooth . It's just my laptop has a switch for turning off the wifi and it needs a driver loaded to operate.
I found a driver for it ok ,but I can't get the damn thing loaded . I'm not familiar with the linux commands . they are make install and make etc ,I'm used to msdos from years back ,so I kind of get the jist of some of the operations.
It looks like windows is finally going to get a death from me ,I shall be free from the nightmare that is one mans dream (a nightmare really:D )

It's hardly a Broadcom 43xx device is it? It takes a bit of persistence to get it working but it can be done. PM me if it is a Broadcom and you need help, I've done it before.

aidan_walsh

skyhighflyer wrote:

PM me if it is a Broadcom and you need help, I've done it before.

Or, alternatively, start a new thread and share the information.

Capt'n Midnight

_Brian_ wrote:

In Windows, change My Documents to point to a folder on your FAT32 partition. Then, just remember to save most of your stuff to the FAT32 partition--a good idea, so it'll be accessible in both Windows and Ubuntu.

Another alternative is to get an ext2 driver for windows

http://www.fs-driver.org/

It provides Windows NT4.0/2000/XP/2003 with full access to Linux Ext2 volumes (read access and write access). This may be useful if you have installed both Windows and Linux as a dual boot environment on your computer

one big advantage is that you can have files bigger than 4GB ( the fat32 limit) - handy if you are doing video work , or backups or what have you.

Civilian_Target

I second capt's recommendation. It also means the drive doesn't need to be defragged, and its also faster and less wasteful.
Works with EXT3 too...