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Old 12-13-2010, 08:32 PM   #1
rsgcontact
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Ubuntu 10.0 Server installed on Windows 7 - Partition and GUI


Hello All,
I am very new to Linux and trying to setup a Ubuntu server in my Windows 7 PC. that means, I am trying to have a dual boot system.
While starting, my PC had 500GB and only one drive C. 18GB of it is used and rest was free.

I have gone thru the following step
1. Downloaded Ubuntu server on a USB using "Universal USb installer"
2. Booted the PC from the USB and started the Install Ubuntu Server
3. After a few steps the install showed 4 partition options.
I specified the guided partitioning options using free space. (The other options where : Using entire disk, using entire disk with LVM, Manual)
Next step it asked me to enter the disk space- it told me it will take at-least 19 GB and maximum available is approx 450GB. My intention was to use the full free space as much as possible. So I specified "max". It told me that it is going to overwrite and create the new partition. Then it progressed fine.
4. I also chosen to install the LAMP stack /Postgress etc.

The installation completed fine

When rebooted I logged back in in windows 7. When I opened explorer,

I still see that the C drive has around 18GB and 396 GB free space. t seems some of the space has been used by the linux server install.

I again started my PC and now I logged in to Ubuntu. I tried command $ df -h . But it is showing the following:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda9/ 2.3G 1.2G 1.1G 53% /
none 1.5G 236K 1.5G 1% /dev
none 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /dev/shm
none 1.5G 372K 1.5G 1% /var/run
none 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /var/lock
none 2.3G 1.2G 1.1G 53% /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs

It seems like it is showing only the file systems that are used by linux which is only 10GB and only 8G is available.

So the questions are:
1. The free space of 400GB still shows up under Windows.How can I make sure that Linux is going to use the free disk space and not only this 10GB?
2. When I load data in Postgres which is in Linux, will that use the free space?
3. Is there any other command that will properly show the actual partitions and hard disk available?
4. What will be the best and light GUI to install with this server? I saw the following options in web:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo aptitude install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
OR
using Webmin
Also, whatever I use will this be using the free space of 400GB that is not showing up under linux?
 
Old 12-13-2010, 11:24 PM   #2
Tinkster
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Can you please post the output of
Code:
fdisk -l
?



Cheers,
Tink
 
Old 12-14-2010, 03:28 PM   #3
Kenarkies
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Distribution: Ubuntu 11.10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rsgcontact View Post
Hello All,
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda9/ 2.3G 1.2G 1.1G 53% /
none 1.5G 236K 1.5G 1% /dev
none 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /dev/shm
none 1.5G 372K 1.5G 1% /var/run
none 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /var/lock
none 2.3G 1.2G 1.1G 53% /var/lib/ureadahead/debugfs
That df command indicates you only have 2.3G in your Ubuntu partition. Have you perhaps overwritten the Windows recovery partition (these are apparently used on laptops and maybe desktops with preinstalls).

From memory, Ubuntu should have had an option to compress the Windows partition to free up empty space, although that is best done within Windows itself. Windows seems to demand something like 60GB regardless of how little space it uses.

Quote:
It seems like it is showing only the file systems that are used by linux which is only 10GB and only 8G is available.
df only shows mounted partitions. You need to mount the Windows partition.

Quote:
1. The free space of 400GB still shows up under Windows.How can I make sure that Linux is going to use the free disk space and not only this 10GB?
It will once it is mounted. Maybe you just want to create a separate partition for use by both OS's?
Quote:
2. When I load data in Postgres which is in Linux, will that use the free space?
ditto
Quote:
3. Is there any other command that will properly show the actual partitions and hard disk available?
fdisk -l
Quote:
4. What will be the best and light GUI to install with this server? I saw the following options in web:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
sudo aptitude install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
OR
using Webmin
XFCE is considered the light GUI of choice. For servers I generally only use command line, sometimes with X running so that I can run GUI applications over ssh, but a desktop GUI like XFCE is useful with some applications rather than just a bare X server.

cheers, Ken
 
Old 12-14-2010, 11:17 PM   #4
rsgcontact
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Tinkster , I tried fdisk -l . But it does nothing. It just prompts back the command prompt again.

Kenarkies , I am not sure how I to mount the free space under ubuntu. Also I thought that ubuntu will automatically create the partition during the install? Do I need to create the partition first inside windows and then install ubuntu server?
 
Old 12-15-2010, 12:38 AM   #5
Tinkster
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rsgcontact View Post
Tinkster , I tried fdisk -l . But it does nothing. It just prompts back the command prompt again.
Can you try again, maybe this time with:
Code:
sudo fdisk -l
?
In slackware "-l" works w/o root permission; ubunut may be
somewhat different in that respect.
 
Old 12-15-2010, 04:59 AM   #6
xuancong
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Registered: Jul 2010
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Cool make it simple

Your current problem can be solved in 2 ways:
1. Resize partition
Use partition magic or some other software to shrink your windows partition (C: drive) and give it to Ubuntu. [Drawback: if your BIOS doesn't support non-native SATA mode, no such switch, oops, so bad, I'm not sure whether linux can resize partition or not]

2. Use windows partition in Linux
You can mount your windows C: drive in Ubuntu such that all your files on C: drive can be both accessed by windows and Ubuntu, but not at the same time. Use the Linux mount command

In fact, I've installed Ubuntu in such a way that it can both run standalone and in virtual machine (VMware) under windows, but that will be much more complicated. You're not doing that right?

Xuancong
 
Old 12-16-2010, 12:29 AM   #7
Kenarkies
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Distribution: Ubuntu 11.10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rsgcontact View Post
Tinkster , I tried fdisk -l . But it does nothing. It just prompts back the command prompt again.
Ubuntu doesn't trust you. You need to use sudo fdisk -l

Quote:
Kenarkies , I am not sure how I to mount the free space under ubuntu. Also I thought that ubuntu will automatically create the partition during the install? Do I need to create the partition first inside windows and then install ubuntu server?
Vista and Windows 7 have a utility for resizing the partition. You should easily find instructions by googling for it. This is by far the safest way to do it. You may then prefer to reinstall Ubuntu to allow it to use all the free space.

Ubuntu will not automatically mount internal partitions (only external ones). To mount the Windows partition the geeky way, use the mount command. If for example "sudo fdisk -l" shows it to be /dev/sda1 (most likely) with NTFS partiton type, then create an empty directory, for example /windows, using

$ sudo mkdir /windows

$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /windows

The files will all appear in /windows. However you will likely have difficulties with permissions if you try to access the files. It would be best to follow instructions such as the following (found at random by googling): http://psychocats.net/ubuntu/mountwindows. I haven't tested these but they shouldn't do any harm. You can then add a line to /etc/fstab which tells Linux what drives to mount on startup. I think the above link gives instructions for that.

Cheers, Ken
 
Old 12-19-2010, 11:06 PM   #8
rsgcontact
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Hello All,
Thanks for all your help. I ultimately used gparted to create seperate partitions for ubuntu and installed ubuntu on that partition.
 
  


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