dual boot with ubuntu and xp.

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X24

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Well i decided to give ubuntu a try on my computer, but i've heard its a lot easier to just dual boot linux and xp since i like an occasional game or two.

my question is, how do i go about doing this? i have my hdd partioned 15 and 85 (not exactly but its a 100gb hdd) and the 15 holds all my os stuff and programs, so will i have to make a seperate 15gb partion for ubuntu or something?
 
I haven't been dual booting with Linux for some time now but the XP mbr will need to see a Grub or Lilo entry made into it. The 15gb primary for the XP installation is still quite small for Windows and any games you would have as well as desktop softwares. That's cramped compared to the size of the drive itself. Ubuntu or another distro on the other hand doesn't generally even need more then about 8gb for a root and about 2gb for a swap if needed depending on the amount of memory installed on the system itself.

The first thing you will need to get if the ubuntu doesn't already have the free Linux drive partitioning tool onhand is GParted. The 85 gb would need to reduced in size to some degree to allow for the one or two Linux partitions. To shrink an existing partition actually takes longer then expanding one. But you may want to backup anything important to removable media prior to making the needed changes for this.
 
Like PC eye said you won't need that much space for the linux partition. Does the 85gb partition have anything on it or is it just empty space? Most Linux distros come with disk partitioners and (if the 85gb is empty) then you can just add a linux partition, from memory the standard linux partition is 82 and the swap is 83, once you add the linux partitions you must set the linux root partition as active. Once Linux is installed the lilo or grub should bring up both your existing Windows partition and your Linux partition. If you aren't prompted at install to make your windows partition visible to Linux, then you can still mount it once in the OS using the mount command.

i.e. mount /dev/hd1 /mnt/windows

Or something along those lines
 
Ubuntu comes with gparted, during the installation it will give you the option to MANUALLY edit your partitions, just choose that and set it up how you want. Ubuntu will need at least 2 partitions, one for root (/) and one for swap.
 
With GParted you can shrink the 85gb down to about 75gb there if you still have a good amount of space free there in order to create the smaller root and swap partitions after. The swap partition on many smaller distros is optional while needed on many of the larger ones. That's another thing to look at.

A live to install cd version would be a typical small size. For a larger and possible second distro later a swap would then be needed more. That was anoher thing to mention here.
 
ok so wat i'll need to do is download ubuntu and burn it to a cd, then install it from the cd? and will the 85gb partion get erased if i partion off a chunk of it?

this is really new to me.........but i hate windows so much now, but i still love call of duty so i have to have XP to play games.
 
Once a partition is set, its set, so you'll have to delete that 85gb partition and make and remake it with something like 70gb FAT (or FAT32), 10gb Linux root, 5gb Linux swap. Those amounts for the Linux are overkill, but if you really need more space for Windows, you could set the Linux parts to something like 5gb for root and 1gb for swap

Oh, and by the way don't forget to set the Linux partition to active or bootable
 
leeroyMarv said:
Once a partition is set, its set, so you'll have to delete that 85gb partition and make and remake it with something like 70gb FAT (or FAT32), 10gb Linux root, 5gb Linux swap. Those amounts for the Linux are overkill, but if you really need more space for Windows, you could set the Linux parts to something like 5gb for root and 1gb for swap

Oh, and by the way don't forget to set the Linux partition to active or bootable
Click to expand...

Way off! While XP willl install and run on a Fat based partition why go with Fat when it's native to NTFS? If thje 85gb partition is already an NTFS type you could shrink it down with a drive partitioning tool like GParted first and have the XP installer format it or delete the current in favor of a new smaller sized NTFS type.

The Linux could then as much as 8-10gb for the root to allow room for any programs and files used there. Generally a 2gb swap partition works depending on how much memory is installed on the system. Figure about 2 to 2 1/2 times the actual amount of physical memory installed. For 1gb of ram a 2gb swap usually works well.
 
The reason for using the FAT file system and not NTFS is that Linux support for NTFS is very limited compared to the FAT file system, plus many distros won't even recognise NTFS as a file system, though i dont know if that applies to Ubuntu. I wasn't certain about partitions being set in cement, from my experience that was the case, but i never really attempted to shrink a partition, i always just deleted them instead 'cause i was to doing so, but if you can just shrink the partition that would probably be a better option
 
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It's NTFS that doesn't see VFat not the other way around for the most. Live distros like Knoppix, ubuntu, and a few others are often written about as rescue tools when an MS type partition becomes inaccessible. I always keep a few live for cd onhand here for just that purpose. Knoppix, Zenwalk, unbuntu 6.10, Mephis, Gentoo are the names there. Knoppix gets the better review for file retrieval for the newbies however.
 
yep, i use knoppix at work for retrieve files for newbie employees :D

you would need to edit the bootloader sorta of like the same way dualbooting the osx with vista :D

bcedit makes life alot easier.
 
All i remeber when trying to install Zenwalk was that it wouldn't recognise my NTFS patition as that was what i originally had. When i changed it to FAT it was recognised on install and I was asked if i wanted to mount it automatically. I also remeber something about fdisk telling me that it didn't recognise the NTFS patrition either and simply called it an 'unknown partition', maybe the partition was corrupt or something?
 
When installing any Linux distro you first create a VFat type partition for the root and another one if needed as in larger distros for the swap partition. Linux and any Fat based OS will not install or run on an NTFS type partition. In constrast XP can be installed and will run on both Fat16 and Fat32 primary type partitions but will not see VFat for Linux or other types for OSs like OS X and Solaris.

Live for cd distros do however see and can access both Fat and NTFS partitions for data/file retrieval. This makes them a usefull tool for recovery at times. This is mainly due to the easier and more effective hardware detection process offered by Linux. But you still have to match the OS to the correct type of partition for installation onto the hard drive unless running it on a virtual machine. Yes it's possible to mount a Linux distro through VMmachine in Windows.
 
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