How to: Dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu Linux

[Kirby King]

Do the partition shrinking in Windows, create the new partition(s) in Linux.

How to do the divisions is up to you. I can't remember how I've split them up before but I think I had one partition for the root directory (/; maybe 10-20 GB?), one for /home (~30 GB), and then most of the remaining space became a shared FAT32 partition. But my drive was probably smaller than yours, distributions have probably gotten somewhat larger, and Linux has pretty solid NTFS read/write support that it didn't have back then. You can make Windows read an ext3 partition but it's probably easier to do things the other way around, at least when it comes to files you legitimately want to share between OSes.

 

[Crimson King]

I was reading through this guide for Ubuntu 9.04 (the version I have), and it didn't say anything about a swap space. Is that still needed? I have 42~ GB free for install Linux, but I wanted to make sure this was enough space. I know I only need around 30, so I wanted to make sure I had more than enough.

The guide:
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm?page=4

 

[ZettaKuma]

You can also take the easy way out an use Wubi

 

[Crimson King]

What's the difference between Wubi and doing an actual dual-boot?

 

[ZettaKuma]

What's the difference between Wubi and doing an actual dual-boot?

Wubi does the partition for you, and uses the Windows Boot Manager.
It also installs like a normal Windows program.

 

[Crimson King]

Nevermind, everything I read said Wubi is just a crippled version of Ubuntu. I want Ubuntu to be my primary OS with Vista for games. So back to my question - Do I still need the swap partition?

 

[AltF4]

Kiki is right.

You have to shrink your existing partition inside of Windows because Windows has to move the files around! Only it will be able to shrink the partition without accidentally deleting files in the way.

But after having done that, Windows won't let you make an Ext3 partition. Ext3 (and the new Ext4) are the file systems that Linux uses. But of course Microsoft doesn't want you to be able to use Linux. So the Microsoft partition tool doesn't let you make an Ext3 partition. You have to do that using the Linux partition manager.


And I'm pretty sure you still need the swap space. Unless something happened in 9.04 to get rid of it that I don't know.

 

[Crimson King]

So, to clarify: I make some of my HDD unallocated. I did 42~ GB. Is that enough? From there, I load the Ubuntu boot disk, and then GParted, and create a section for Linux and a section for Swap? Is that correct? Sorry for the questions, I don't want to mess this up?

 

[AltF4]

Sounds perfect. Getting past the windows partition nonsense is usually the hazardous part. Ubuntu will automagically set up the dual-boot when it installs itself.

 

[Crimson King]

Sweet! So, I don't have to set anything else up? Great! I will be doing this after class tomorrow. I'm pretty stoked.

 

[rabbt]

You don't need swap at all! It's a lie! All it is is a partition of HDD which is used as extended RAM. Having swap actually slows down your computer because it creates a bottleneck. Swap was good back in the days of 16MB RAM, but not nowadays.

 

[Crimson King]

From what I read, Swap is virtual memory that will help if there is an overload. I have 4GB of RAM, do I really need a large swap, or can I get by with 4GB?

The way I am thinking of working everything is 10 for "/" and 20 for "/home," since I have a large second HDD. I am not sure if I have enough for "/" though. I've thought about going up to around 15GB. Do these numbs sound good? That's only 34 to 38GB total (38 if I double my RAM), and I still have plenty room for Windows to grow as it will.

If those numbers work, I will install this afternoon, and post how it goes. Thanks for the help.

 

[Crimson King]

Well, I tried and failed.

First, I went into Ubuntu, did the install. When I got to the partition section, it didn't register Vista as being installed. After that, I got tried to proceed with my blank section of memory, and the disk had an error that says it may be dirty. I will try my other Ubuntu disk, but any ideas on why Vista wasn't being recorded? I have 44 GB set aside: 4 for Swap space, 15 for Root, 25 for Home. Anything else I can do?

 

[AltF4]

So what exactly does your hard drive look like right now? In terms of partitions. For example, mine is the following:

1) NTFS -> 269 GB (Vista)
2) EXT3 -> 25 GB (Backtrack)
3) SWAP -> 1 GB (Swap space)
4) EXT3 -> 78 GB (Ubuntu)

The Ubuntu partition manager might not say "Hey, it looks like you've got a Windows installation!" But it should recognize an NTFS partition.

As for the disk error, that probably is just a scratch or burn error or something.

 

[Crimson King]

Buzz suggested not doing any preparatitioning/allocation, so all I had was my HDD. When that didn't recognize, I shrank my C drive, and I gave Ubuntu 44GB to play with, 4 GB for Swap (since I have 4GB of RAM, I figure this is more than enough), and 40 to split between root and home. I never got a point where I was asked to partition it further.

Note: I am using Ubuntu 9.04, which a video I watched said was different from previous versions.

Also, can you get on AIM and maybe walk me through it?

 

[rabbt]

https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/index.html

Good link! You should read through that before you have someone try to walk you through it. Also, 4GB is too much swap. You only "need" (I use quotes because you don't actually need swap) 1GB.

 

[Crimson King]

Ah, thanks. I got the 4GB because a few things I read said you need at least the same amount as RAM. I'll read through that, but any idea why Vista is not showing up on the installer screen? Let me get snag a picture of it later and post that.

 

[AltF4]

Yea, a screenshot might help. I'd be really surprised if it weren't recognized. You should see an NTFS partition. You can still boot into Windows right now, can't you?

 

[Crimson King]

Yeah, I am in Windows right now. On the Disk Management screen, it says both my drives are NTFS and healthy. The C drive (where I want to install Ubuntu) has Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, and Primary Partition next to it. It recognizes my other HDD, which has System, Active, Primary Partition next to it, but it says "No other OSes are installed," on either drive.

 

[toon_marth]

Will my drivers for my wireless card work on linux? There is no designated driver for that OS...and I can't get them to load on XP.

 

[AltF4]

Most like: Yes.

But to be sure, why don't you give it a try? Download the Ubuntu CD and give the Live boot a try. You don't have to make any changes to your computer. You can just try it out and see if t works for you.

Also, what Wifi card do you have?

 

[Superstar]

I tried putting Ubuntu on an old comp but it was a bad disk and I doubt it'd start up anyways [128MB RAM yay].

So I put Windows 2000. It's someone else's comp though, yaaaay.

Legacy Computers with 900Mhz CPU and 128MB PC100 RAM are aren't fun.

 

[toon_marth]

Most like: Yes.

But to be sure, why don't you give it a try? Download the Ubuntu CD and give the Live boot a try. You don't have to make any changes to your computer. You can just try it out and see if t works for you.

Also, what Wifi card do you have?

I use the Linksys WPC100 rangeplus notebook adapter. Worked fine but I completely reinstalled XP home and deleted the partition that had the XP Pro with the fail component that it couldn't work without. Now with XP I can't get it work from the CD. I get the error message : External exception C0000006. Then it says access violation...

 

[rabbt]

I tried putting Ubuntu on an old comp but it was a bad disk and I doubt it'd start up anyways [128MB RAM yay].

So I put Windows 2000. It's someone else's comp though, yaaaay.

Legacy Computers with 900Mhz CPU and 128MB PC100 RAM are aren't fun.

I've run Ubuntu on slower machines. If you want to revive an old box, install DSL, aka D a m n Small Linux

 

[Crimson King]

Most like: Yes.

But to be sure, why don't you give it a try? Download the Ubuntu CD and give the Live boot a try. You don't have to make any changes to your computer. You can just try it out and see if t works for you.

Also, what Wifi card do you have?

I actually had a problem with this one. My girlfriend's computer was going through issues, so I ran Linux, and we couldn't get any internet connection.

Regardless, I am still pretty stuck as to why the Ubuntu installer will not see my copy of Vista. Should I just try just installing Linux on that unallocated spot, and hope for the best or keep reading? I am still going through that manual.

 

[AltF4]

I agree, that is a good distro, rabbt.

 

[rabbt]

I actually had a problem with this one. My girlfriend's computer was going through issues, so I ran Linux, and we couldn't get any internet connection.

Regardless, I am still pretty stuck as to why the Ubuntu installer will not see my copy of Vista. Should I just try just installing Linux on that unallocated spot, and hope for the best or keep reading? I am still going through that manual.

As long as the installer recognizes unallocated vs allocated space, it doesn't matter if it knows that it's definitely Vista. You can add a boot record later.

 

[Crimson King]

Well, I got Linux to boot and everything. When I restarted to download some Drivers on Windows (firefox just pops up a window that has nothing in it and never loads when I click download links), I came back to Ubuntu, and now, it loads as a DOS menu. I click the first option on GRUB, the Ubuntu logo with loading bar comes up, and then, it goes straight to this DOS screen asking for my login name and password. The screen has the following text:

Boot from (hd1,4) ext 3 fe8d35ae-1ebd-4988-8c56-88eea3bca305
Starting up....
Loading, please wait...
19+0 records in
19+0 records out
kinit: name_to_dev_t(/dev/disk/by-uuid/3c908[...]) = dev(8,22)
kinit: trying to resume from /dev/disk/by-uuid/3c908[...])
kinit: No resume image, doing normal boot...

Ubuntu 9.04 eric-desktop tty1

eric-desktop login:

I am sure this is something simple that I am over looking, but any ideas?

 

[rabbt]

First, DOS is an OS. What you're seeing is called the terminal, which is just an interactive layer.

Second, you're not shutting down properly, or there is a problem with the install. When you installed Ubuntu, did it ask for a password? Your login is either "eric" or "eric-desktop" (probably the first). Your password is whatever you typed. Note: Linux doesn't show anything when you are typing in a terminal password field (unlike Windows or DOS, where asterisks or circles are shown), so don't freak out and think your keyboard stopped working or anything.

 

[Crimson King]

That would be correct. I typed in my password, and it showed a new message but still in the terminal. I don't remember it exactly, but it was something to the effect of asking me where I want to go, like I typed in "Shut down," and it said "cannot find program, or program is not installed."

 

[AltF4]

That means you're in! But the graphical shell isn't running.

Quite interesting. When you get to that point, where you can type stuff after logging in, try typing:

startx

You could always try reformatting and installing again, too.

 

[Crimson King]

So, I have to do that every time I reboot? I think I may just reformat and start over. It shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks for the help. I also may try reburning my disks at a lower speed.

Here is what I got when I typed "Startx":

Fatal sercer error: no screens found
[...]

giving up.
xinit: no such file or directory (errno2): unable to connect to X server
xinit: No such process (errno3): Server error.

 

[AltF4]

No you shouldn't need to type that at every start. I just wanted to see what would come up.

Does the LiveCD work just fine? Can you use Ubuntu without making changes to your computer? If so, then it's just a problem with your installation. Give it another install and/or burn another disk.

Ubuntu does have a "check CD for defects" option, you can try that to see if your CD is okay.

 

[Crimson King]

I ran a disk integrity check, and it said there were no errors found.

Then, I booted without making changes. That showed me an error saying "The panel encountered a problem while loading 'OAFiiD:GNOME_ClockApplet'. Do you want to delete the applet from your configuration?" I click don't delete, because I am not sure what this means, but other than that Ubuntu boots up.

To reinstall, I just reformat this partition, right? I don't have to do anything else? Sorry for all the questions.

Also, what caused this, and how can I prevent it?

Final edit: The install detected Vista, but on the wrong Hard Drive. I have one HDD with 139GB, which has Vista on it. My other HDD has 500GB, but is just a storage for all files I download/games, and does not have Vista on it. On the installer screen, it saw Vista on the 500, but when I switched to the 139, it saw no OS. This is pretty confusing. Could this be the source of my problems?

 

[Crimson King]

My last post was getting a bit cluttered, but I reinstalled Linux, then when I rebooted, same issue as before - boots straight in to the terminal. Ideas?

 

[rabbt]

Delete that clock applet. It's the date/time/clock dealy on the top bar. You can add it later, but see if it boots into GNOME without the applet.

 

[Crimson King]

It was just on the disk though. On Linux proper, I don't get any errors until I restart. The only thing I can see is I installed this Nvidia driver that it asked me to install. It said it was official and everything, so I am pretty much out of ideas. I found a few message boards with the same issues, so I will read those, I guess.

 

[rabbt]

Yeah, a lot of drivers are proprietary. Ubuntu usually does a really good job of handling them, though. Any specific errors?

 

[Crimson King]

None came up. It just said I needed to restart to use my new driver.

Trying this when I get home: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/138230-ubuntu-wont-boot-gui.html

Didn't work: here is something new I found:

http://www.dullest.com/blog/ubuntu-freeze-no-resume-image/

I load the "sudo fdisk /dev/sda" and press P for printing. What loads is the following:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 88225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x63d68e97

Device Boot - /dev/sda1 *
Start - 1
End - 60802
Blocks - 488385024
Id - 7
System - HPFS/NTFS

The thing is this is not the correct drive. This is my secondary drive, which has no files on it except games and such. The drive that has Linux, its Swap, and Windows is the other drive, which GParted shows.

I really have no idea what else to do... I reinstalled Linux, and when I went to update the drivers, it did the same thing. A lot of things I read said this is supposed to happen because it is booting perfectly normal, but I have no idea how to get back to the GUI. I tried running some commands to update my Nvidia driver, but it said directories didn't exist.

I saw this line as a suggestion, but I have no idea if it will work:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Any ideas?

 

[Crimson King]

Hate to double post, but I am running out of ideas on what to try, and I think I may have to give up on Ubuntu. I have read a lot of people getting this same thing, but no ways to fix it. I just want the GUI back...