installation of ubuntu alongwith windows xp & unable to access data from Windows
 

Dear Sirs,
I am new to linux OS. Last week I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my system in dual booting. I had installed succesfully both but unable to see data files from windows OS. Though I have excercised the options suggessted in various resources available on internet/blogs. System takes about 03 hrs during installation process. I am also unable to configure Thunderbird. System hardware info is as -
System Manufacturer VIA Technologies, Inc.
System Model KM266APro-835
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 8 Stepping 1 AuthenticAMD ~1659 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies, LTD 6.00 PG, 7/6/2004
SMBIOS Version 2.2
Boot Device\Device\HarddiskVolume1
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2 rtm.040803-2158)"
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Please help so that I can use Ubuntu 10.10 successfuly.
With regards
Yours,
Arun Kumar
arun.kr@hotmail.com

That's what will eventually help you (sorry, personally I have little experience with Ubuntu and how it handles things), but generally this should do it:

The following line will give you the names of devices and how they're formatted:
Look for the devices formatted with NTFS (or FAT32). That are probably your Win drives. Next you just have to mount the drives somewhere. Usualy Linux distros use one of two folders /mnt/ or /media/ to mount drives, but you can use any folder you want. Let's say fdisk revealed your windows drive is /dev/sda1 and it is ntfs formatted you can mount it to /media/WinDrv with this command:
In most cases -t can be even omitted. The -o uid=yourUserName should give you read/write rigths on the mount point. For more mount options you can look up it's man page: http://linux.die.net/man/8/mount

If you'd like your drives to be mounted on system startup, you'll have to edit /etc/fstab. More about it can be read here: http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/fstab.html Note that whatever changes you made to /etc/fstab you have to do it as the superuser (root).

On the other hand it may be, that ubuntu has allready mounted your drives, you just can't find the mountpoints. The following command will reveal that for you:
It actually shows you how much free disk space you have, but it also tells you which drives (on the left) are mounted to which mount points (folders) (on the right).

Please note, that mounting ntfs (or FAT32) drives must be supported by kernel, but most of the new linux distros usually don't have problems with that. However there is no full write support for ntfs, you can just overwrite a file if you do not change it's size.

What's for your Thunderbird issues, you'll have to address it more precisely...

I take that to mean that when you are in windows, you are unable to see Ubuntu data files which is standard for any windows. I believe there is third party software available to do this.

If you actually mean that you are unable to see windows files from Ubuntu, please state that. I would be very surprised if that were the situation as it usually works by default.

What system takes three hours during installation?

Explore2fs reads ext2, it may read ext3 & 4, but not sure, although there maybe other apps.

Hihihi, never thought it could be the other way around :)

I used LTools for operations like that, kinda messy app, but it works for ext2 and ext3.

If there is a dual boot option with a Windows and Linux operating system, there must be a partitial setup to share between the two. Windows can see Linux partition, but do not remember if there is a solution to read Linux partitions.

If the Linux OS is that one that starts, it still has to mount the Windows partition.

Try looking at the mount manual.

$man mount

Dual booting but unable to view data files from Windows OS
 

Dear Sir
You are right about the first above para. There is no issue of viewing data files from Ubuntu as stated in second above para.

System takes 03 hrs for installation it is true. I am just telling you the steps which has been done - [LIST=1]

Ubuntu live CD inserted in drive.
System booted from CD.
Manual partition selected.
Created first partition (primary) ext4 journaling and mounted on "/"
Swap partition (logical) twice of RAM. In my case 1024 MB
Third partition (logical) ext4 and mounted on /home
Then clicked forward
System asks key layout
Then Location selected.
afterwards from this point, process is extremely slow. it appears that system is hanged.
Your
arun kumar

Hi

It can be done from within windows

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ub...dows-installer

Also you can try GUI safe graphics mode or simply go with the text based installer

Hi Arun,

To add my two cent's worth, I would not advise you to install ubuntu from within windows. I too tried it first because I was not too familiar with the partition setup, but found that it slows down the system too much. Since you are already able to assign partitions, I would suggest that you stick with it for some more time. Have you tried using ext3 or even ext2 file system. I know that ext4 is the latest, but honestly any difference in speed is noticeable only in the server level. On desktops it should not make too much of a difference unless you want to count nano second differences.
I feel that your installation time is extending because of your low ram although 512 is supposed to be enough. I too had a 512 MB ram and it took me a solid 40 min to install it the first time. When I added another stick to make it 1 GB, installation time is right now less than 15 min. A swap partition is good because you will be helping your system out with virtual memory, but no way can the speed of the HD match the speed of the RAM. The swap will just make sure that your system does not crash for want of memory, but will not be the same as having an additional stick.
A better idea would be for you to use a USB flash drive, format it as a swap partition, and mount it. This is not a long term solution, but may serve for the immediate future. This is almost as good as ram except that all flash drives have a limited life, and you are just burning this life by using it as ram. so be warned.
I am no expert, but I would suggest that you try installing Ubuntu on a separate partition, give it 1 GB of swap as you are, but use either ext3 or ext2 filesystem. Format the partition with the format option during installation and have a single root and home partition. You are just loading up your system with extra work by having it format two separate partitions.
If not you can get an additional stick of ram. If you have a ddr2 ram, you can get a good quality 1 gb one for around Rs900 anywhere in India. Just make sure that they both operate at the same speed, if not it will cause your system to crash and then try the installation once again. Let me know if this has made a difference.