How to: Dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu Linux

[TheBuzzSaw]

I've used "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" in the past to recover my GUI, but it was just trial-and-error until it worked.

It saddens me you are having such bad luck with Linux so far. Sometimes, you just have a bad hardware configuration that Linux cannot figure out. I've seen machines unable to do anything, but I've also seen machines where every single device was found no problem. Hit and miss, I suppose...

As a result of my good luck thus far, I can't say I have much experience in tweaking it at this level. I would highly recommend visiting UbuntuForums.org (or whatever distro you're using). The community there is pretty darn smart and active.

 

[Crimson King]

Done and done: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7279758#post7279758

I guess since it's a custom built computer, there are going to be some issues, but still... it sucks.

 

[rabbt]

Try an older version, like 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

 

[Crimson King]

That's an idea. Let me see if I get any replies by tomorrow. If not, I'll go with 8.04, and if that doesn't work, then screw Linux.

 

[Crimson King]

All right, I have managed to do a few things. First one guide I read on going SLi said to remove my bridge before doing it otherwise I will get black screened. I did that and installed Ubuntu 8.04 to positive results. So, I went to the IRC channel for Ubuntu where they told me how to install my drivers. I cannot do ctrl + alt + F2 to boot my Nvidia driver for some reason, so I went with going with the sound card first.

I move the sound card drivers to my desktop, Cd'd to it. I then ran sudo make and sudo make install (per the readme). I rebooted, and now, it loads a black screen that says "Loading Hardware drivers" and that process fails, then it hangs on Loading Drivers Manually forever. Also, after doing this update, the Ubuntu load bar takes A LOT longer. I go back to the IRC chat and one person suggested that I have the wrong kernel version. http://opensource.creative.com/soundcard.html - I used that site to find my creative X-Fi drivers, but it doesn't list kernel version.

My questions are is there A. a way to reverse what I did with the driver, and B. a way to find definite drivers?

 

[Crimson King]

I think I have manged to have most of the things under control. I just had some questions:

How do I update drivers? I need to update my Nvidia card and Creative X-Fi card, but when I did the latter, it crashed the computer for some reason. Also, I added Kubuntu to my girlfriend's computer without issue. The only thing that's kind of bad is that she cannot get wireless internet. The wireless card sees our router, but she cannot get onto any websites. I assume this is a driver issue. She has a Broadcom BCM4312 (close to that). Any ideas?

 

[Omis]

How would the process differ if I was attempting to install Mac Leopard? Also, is it possible to do so without the need to burn any dvds?

 

[Crimson King]

In theory, you can do it with a jump drive, but I haven't found much instructions on that. If you don't have a burner, I'd request a CD.

 

[Crimson King]

All right. I have gotten Linux running. A lot of issues with it due to my massive hardware, but it's a-go. From my experiments, Brittany has gotten into Ubuntu 9.04 with a Mac OSX look, and she couldn't be happier. I am still working on minor driver issues, but other than that, no complaints.

 

[Superstar]

Good for you.

On my end, I uninstalled Linux and replaced it with Windows 7. Weeeeee. Not as easy on the RAM as everyone says but I got 64 bit. Bout time I use my second 2GB stick.

 

[AltF4]

Ubuntu 9.04 fixed all the Laptop issues I was having with 8.10.

- The main volume bar didn't work. I had to open up the full sound mixer window to change the volume.
- My laptop has a bunch of media buttons, like for fast forwarding, pausing movies. Also turnign the sound up and down, etc... None of those worked. And indeed freaked out sometimes and thought I was pressing them when I wasn't.
- Anytime I pressed the "volume up" or down the computer would crash. But ONLY when the power was not plugged in. That one was weird.
- 9.04 also correctly recognizes Vista as "Vista" and not "Longhorn", lol.
- Video drivers properly work now. I can use the flashy graphics instead of just the plain ones.

All fixed. Good job, canonical.

 

[Crimson King]

- Video drivers properly work now. I can use the flashy graphics instead of just the plain ones.

All fixed. Good job, canonical.

**** you, *****.

I think I am getting to the bottom of that one though.

 

[AltF4]

Are you still using the 2 SLI'd Video cards? That might be a tough nut to crack. What make are they? A quick Google search tells me that NVidia has proprietary Linux drivers (yeck...) that have SLI support.

 

[Kirby King]

FWIW, my desktop kept hanging until I installed the proprietary Nvidia drivers. This may just be an issue of insufficient sample size (I don't use my desktop much, and I only put Jaunty on it a couple days ago) but it hung once during installation and within a few minutes of bootup twice in a row. With the proprietary driver it hummed along for a bit longer before I tried to make it hibernate (and then it did other weird stuff, but, uh, like I said I don't use my desktop much anyway).

Would be nice if I could get the TV tuner to work. It's recognized, but trying to get a video signal proved fruitless. I tried using MythTV; am I a fool for being surprised at how unfriendly the interface to that is?

 

[Crimson King]

I have two Nvidia Geforce 250s. The driver I need is 180.51, which is what Linux suggests. I install that one, either through hardware drivers, NVidia's site, or EnvyNg, and it gets stuck in tty1 terminal with X being unable to start. Odd thing.

 

[SmashChamp]

Done and done: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7279758#post7279758

I guess since it's a custom built computer, there are going to be some issues, but still... it sucks.

Do not profess posessing vast knowledge on Linux or Unix per se. C.K. couldn't it be the CPU processor --meaning, 64bits has been known to not be um...compatible.

*nevermind please delete this post as is impossible to do so from my end*

 

[Crimson King]

That's exactly what I thought, so I switched to 64-Bit to the same results. I got a few suggestions on how to work it out, but I haven't had the time to try it.

 

[Mr. M4]

*-- NOTE --*
this may be a little late but
for those of you with less than 2GB RAM,
i would recommend adding a swap file of at least 2GB

--
How to
--
Before you assign the ext3 or ext4 partition, select new partition,
then a drop down menu will have ext3 selected,
click on that then select 'swap' or 'swap file',
then from there everything would be exactly the same as the rest of the guide.

 

[RipN]

So I haven't read much on this topic, but felt like putting in my two cents based on my experience.

Don't dual boot any type of Windows OS and Linux. Windows does NOT play nice with any other OS besides itself or siblings (7, Vista, XP). It will run okay for a while, but you will soon get boot errors, the MBR will become corrupt, tons of trouble and hassles that aren't needed. So just stick with one OS and be happy with it, IMHO.

 

[Kirby King]

If you don't tell Windows to change anything you shouldn't have any problems dual booting other operating systems. Just make sure you're not using Windows' boot loader and don't change anything from Windows. It's not going to become sentient and destroy your non-Windows partitions.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

So I am going to try this soon, you guys going to back me up? haha

Two quick questions:
-Will doing this (dual-booting) cause me any trouble when I go to update to windows 7?
-I am trying to google linux/ubuntu's compatibility with my specific laptop, so I can hopefully foresee any problems before they happen, but I am not getting very good results. Is there anything specific I should look at compatibility wise? I am thinking it should be fine because my laptop is pretty basic, but I just want to be sure.

Anyways, the whole 'philosophy' behind free software and such is great and I am looking forward to trying this. =)

 

[Kirby King]

You should be able to run Windows 7 and Linux on the same computer. I've never tried to upgrade Windows with a Linux partition on the same disk though, so you might need to go through some special steps to make sure Windows doesn't prevent you from booting into Linux after you run the upgrade. There will surely be instructions on how to do so by the time Windows 7 comes out (and there are probably instructions out there already anyway).

If you'd like to get a sense of what works with your laptop, the best way is probably to try a Live CD and see for yourself what works and what doesn't. Nowadays compatibility is much less of an issue than it used to be, but trying the Live CD gives you the advantage of seeing what doesn't work before you commit to installing anything. If Google fails you, just trying it out without installing is the easiest way to see what will work.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

Posting from the live-cd. So far so good, I am going to continue to play around for a little here.

 

[The Sauce Boss]

I am getting "no root file system defined" when I try to hit next after selecting my ext3 partition. I assume I have to change something under edit partition>use as, but I don't know what to change it to. Help?

edit: Something else I need help with too. You can only have 4 primary partitions and I already have 3 with just vista.

-ntfs C:
-ntfs TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME (wtf)
-ntfs HDDRECOVERY

So I need to find a way to free up a partition to make room for swap space and ubuntu, any ideas? Is there any way to like combine them or something?

EDIT: ubuntu forums beat you guys to it. Anyways it is installed and running fine so far. I got my fingers crossed for no problems.

Take that Microsoft!
-flips the bird-

 

[Crimson King]

Hell yes! After months of trying, I now have Ubuntu running SLi/showing the GUI.

Today is awesome.

 

[Crimson King]

Quick question:

I have downloaded a few games lately, namely Tremulous, Free Civ, and Spring, but it's downloading to my file system. How can I get these on my second HDD where I have a ton of free space?

 

[AltF4]

Just drag and drop the files? Or are you asking how to set it to automatically download there in the future?

 

[Crimson King]

Automatically. Like I downloaded Spring RTS engine from the Synaptic manager. By default, it downloaded it to the Home folder, then created it's own folder there. I'd like to do that with the 500GB HDD since it shares with Windows, and I like to keep everything together.

 

[Sraigux]

Very informative! Thanks! I have always wanted to try out Linux, but since I do not own my computer I cannot dual boot with Linux. But from what I read, I can play around with Linux without actually installing it?

 

[Crimson King]

Yep. Burn a copy of Ubuntu from their site to a disk (or by a copy off their site where you just pay shipping and get a sticker), then run it in your computer following the guide. It does nothing to the settings.

 

[Dastrn]

I'm another Ubuntu freak, although I don't have it installed currently, as I had my laptop crash recently, and I'm just using a stock-Dell desktop for now until I can conjure up the energy to do a MoBo repair myself from home.

The OP still says 8.10, by the way, and we're on 9.04. We will have 9.10 in just a month, so be prepared to update it again.

 

[Crimson King]

No idea if I will be updating to 9.10. Buzz claims it is really easy, but he's a dirty liar.

 

[Dastrn]

No idea if I will be updating to 9.10. Buzz claims it is really easy, but he's a dirty liar.

Shouldn't be that hard. I'll wait until 9.10 comes out, and then maybe I'll go ahead and partition a piece of my new desktop away for Ubuntu. I've been having withdrawals over the last few months with my laptop dead.

I just need to free up some HD space. Too many downloaded TV shows...sigh.

 

[AltF4]

I may have to update this for Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10, though.

 

[Super_ness]

How might one install Ubuntu an external hard drive?

 

[Dastrn]

I just installed 9.10 yesterday. It's HOT.
It looks like they cleaned up various parts of the interface to make it more user-friendly. I noticed this the most in the new "Ubuntu Software Center" where you add new programs.
I installed a couple of custom themes, and threw a shiny Horde logo on my background to make it awesome.
I'll edit and add a screenshot.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Ooh ooh. Where'd you get new themes?

 

[Dastrn]

Ooh ooh. Where'd you get new themes?

http://www.technama.com/2009/ubuntu-themes-61-awesome-themes-for-linux/

It's called Moomex theme. Then I've got Cairo-Dock running on the right side, although it's kinda broken for me now, so I'm working on that.
Horde background, I just did a google search for that.

 

[Super_ness]

Whoa. Wow. Ubuntu looks awesome.

Why must I use Windows!!

 

[Dastrn]

Did I mention how awesome 9.10 is? Rumor is that 10.04 will be even better, since it will have their legacy support.

For anyone unfamiliar with the model, every year, Canonical releases 2 new versions of Ubuntu. In april, they release X.04, where X is the year, minus the first numbers, and 04 means April. In October, they do the same, but X.10 instead.
I think it's every other year, they will release one version that they will guarantee they will maintain support for 3 years for the regular version, and 5 years for the server version. This is to ensure businesses that they will have the help they need if they choose to use Ubuntu instead of Windows. Linux is already close to even with Windows in the server world, although it's not always Ubuntu, of course. There are dozens of Linux OS's not connected to Ubuntu.

Anyways, 10.04 will be one of their "LTS" (Long Term Support) releases, which is awesome, because instead of focusing on new features, they focus those releases on stability, and user experience. Ubuntu is already becoming just about as easy to use, or even easier, than Windows is. This next 6 months, I imagine Canonical will focus their efforts on streamlining the user interface a lot to make sure the ease of use goes up, and the intimidating factor of switching OS's goes down. We'll start seeing Ubuntu ship with most netbooks, since it's running right now (just checked) on only 278 MB of RAM with Firefox closed, and only 694 MBs with Firefox, Evolution mail (outlook alternative), AND some Torrent software running, out of my 4 gigs available! That means you can easily multitask on most netbook hardware with no slowdown whatsoever.

This OS is amazing, and I can't wait to see what comes next.