Sony Vaio Ubuntu XP dual boot?
 

I want to install Ubuntu 6.10 on a Sony Vaio TX3XP as a dual boot install. This would not usually be a problem but in this case the Sony Vaio has an unusual partition setup and as this is a work laptop I cannot afford to screw up the original Sony install. There are three partitions on the drive: A sony backup partition (which is invisible in windows), a C: drive with the XP operating system on and a D: drive for files etc. In linux they are labelled as Hda1, Hda2 and Hda5. The second drive (Hda2) is the boot drive! I want to resize drive D: (hda5) and add a new partition for Ubuntu (Hda6). This is not a problem - but I am not sure where to install the Grub bootloader - by default Ubuntu wants to put it on Hd0 but the boot drive is Hda2 - so where do I put the bootloader so that I get a choice of ubuntu or windows when I boot? On Hd0 or Hda2 ?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

drbongo

I have done this on a similar vaio, it works just fine:
Let (k)ubuntu resize hda6 to make a root and swap partitions.
kubuntu didn't give me any choice about installing grub when I installed 6.06 - it just went ahead and put it on the MBR, but it worked fine & I have never looked back. Yes, I still get a choice for windows, but I never use it after testing it once, just to see if it would load (it did).

Every partition has a boot sector. Thus a boot loader can be installed in any partition, except swap, without affecting the content inside.

If you put Linux boot loader in (hd0) this is for the whole disk and it means the MBR.

If you put a Linux boot loader inside its root partition (i.e. not the MBR) then it can only be booted by "another" boot loader controlling the MBR.

In your case the simplest is to put it in the MBR.

A stand alone XP is booted by MS version of the MBR but that can be re-generated by the XP or any Win2k installation CD. By installing a Linux it is standard to allow Linux's boot loader to "overwrite" whatever in the MBR which is only 512 bytes.

In a standard Kubuntu installation its Grub should automatically arrange to dual boot both systems. If it doesn't a lot of us here can fix it.

All boot loader's MBR portion can be regenerated by simple commands so don't lose sleep for losing any of them. Even for a laptop both Xp and Linux can be booted without the use of the MBR so don't let it scare you.

Thanks for the encouraging advice - I hope to give it a try after Christmas! I will post here if it goes smoothly or even it all goes horribly wrong!

drbongo

I can report back that the install worked fine although I had to partition the disk manually as there where already three partitions on the disk and the default partition setup did not give me enough space to install. I installed Ubuntu in the normal way and when the partition options where shown I edited it manually resizing the Windows D: drive to 1Gb(hda5) and creating a 26Gb+ ext3 logical partition for Ubunutu (hda4)and a 1Gb+ primary partition for swap(hda6). Everything else went fine - I now just have to sort out some of the function keys e.g. brightness control etc. Thanks for the help and encouragement.(hda1=recovery partition, hda2=Windows install,hda3=Extended partition)

drbongo

Well done!
This isn't too difficult: A google for fsfn and sonypi will probably get you started, and here's a "work in progress" page:

http://ubuntufs.wordpress.com/2007/0...torial-part-3/

Thanks - I found a simple way to activate the brightness buttons/controls in Ubuntu on the TX3XP:

1- Open a Terminal
2- Type: sudo gedit /usr/share/hal/scripts/hal-system-lcd-get-brightness
3- Change /bin/sh for /bin/bash on the first line and save
4- Type: sudo gedit /usr/share/hal/scripts/hal-system-lcd-set-brightness
5- Change /bin/sh for /bin/bash on the first line and save

I found this at:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=305141

This was the only thing I couldn't do, I can control the volume from the on screen slider and this means I can do what I want - I am not desperate for the other function buttons (CD eject would be handy). I will check out your help file again in a few weeks to see whether you have removed the 'testing' warning.

Thanks again for the help!

drbongo

Drbongo,

That's interesting - I didn't know about hal & brightness (I'm running 6.06.1).

I have my brightness & volume buttons working with sonypi & fsfn, so I am happy.

"Suspend" seemed to work when my battery went flat about a month ago, when the power was restored, everything came right back, no need even to login, but I can't be bothered with the S1 and S2 buttons that are supposed to do this on demand (rather than as a low-power panic).

Thanks for the interesting hal link though.