What is the best Way to Dual Boot Install Ubuntu 11.10?
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What is the best Way to Dual Boot Install Ubuntu 11.10?
Hi,
I am curious to dual boot Ubuntu 11.10 on my Win 7(H P)Computer.However i learnt that there is more than one way to dual boot like Wubi,Vmware,burnt DVD etc..I already have a separate drive partitioned for Linux(F in Windows Environment.So
i)Which option should i go with ?
ii)Is it possible to view contents of other drive(C:,D: etc) from Linux environment ?
iii)I read in a blog that While using Wubi,it only installs Ubuntu 7.x.Is it true?
Read more about a wubi install. It is not a dual-boot but is an installation of Ubuntu inside windows as a program.
Vmware or using some virtual software is having the software inside windows and installing Ubuntu and is also not a dual-boot and doesn't use a separate partition.
There are numerous tutorials for installing Ubuntu as a dual-boot with windows, just google it.
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Is it possible to view contents of other drive(C:,D: etc) from Linux environment ?
Yes. Ubuntu should be able to read/write to ntfs (windows) partitions if ntfs-3g is installed.
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I read in a blog that While using Wubi,it only installs Ubuntu 7.x.Is it true?
You should be able to install pretty much any recent version of Ubuntu using wubi.
Read more about a wubi install. It is not a dual-boot but is an installation of Ubuntu inside windows as a program.
Never having used wubi, I understand it amends the boot and offers both in a menu.
How is that not a dual boot ?. No different to a list of kernel (initrd) entries for different distros.
Never having used wubi, I understand it amends the boot and offers both in a menu.
How is that not a dual boot ?. No different to a list of kernel (initrd) entries for different distros.
The Wubi initial pop-up menu offers both options- the dual-boot install and yancek's description of Ubuntu running as a program.
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Is it possible to view contents of other drive(C:,D: etc) from Linux environment ?
'
I've never had a problem with this, again as yancek said.
Is it true that any dual-boot with Win7 will only have two partitions: / and swap?
Not exactly. That's all you need and if you already have a Linux distribution installed with a swap partition, there is no need to create another one. Some distributions default install will create a separate /boot partition, some a separate /home partition but all this can be changed by the user during the installation.
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Win7 seems to need two partitions and only four total seem to be possible.
I've not installed win7 so I'm not sure how many partitions will be used if you install yourself but, an OEM install usually has three partitions. A boot, a filesystem and Recovery partition. You are limited to four primary partitions and you may use one of the primary partitions to create an Extended partition in which you can then create a number of logical partitions.
I've got an HP computer (s3707c, 4GB RAM) that came with Vista (upgrades to Win7 via the upgrade disk), that I configured to multiboot several Linux distros. I booted a Linux live CD, used Gparted to shrink the Windows partition down to a reasonable size, then in the free space created an extended partition which I divided into several partitions, each of which gets its own Linux distro. No guarantee it's the "best" solution, but it works well for me. YMMV.
Only four primary partitions are possible, but you can instead have three primary and any number (well - 127 I think) logical partitions. Linux will happily use a logical partition.
Windows 7 seems to take a recovery partition and a system+data partition, yes.
Advantages of WUBI{Windows-based UBuntu Installer}
1. Wubi doesn't need a separate partition rather it install in existing drive's free space
2. You have minimum{negligible} risk of any data loss
3. WUBI doesn't override window's boot menu .
4. Good backup or restoration i.e. wubi creates a single file for it's / {root} partition.
this file is saved as root.disk. To save this file go to directory where ubuntu is installed ..Search for root.disk..This is your whole / {root} partition.. keep this for future failures or restoration.... you can copy this whole file to any folder and replacing it will restore all your / partition at any time...
Disadvantages of WUBI
1. If you have large sized root.disk then it is hard to make a copy
2. Hibernation is not supported
3. File system is more vulnerable to hard reboots
4. If the Windows drive is unmounted uncleanly (most commonly because of a Windows crash and force shutdown), Ubuntu will not be able to mount the Windows drive and boot until Windows has successfully booted and shut down. If the Windows system cannot be booted after the crash, the user also cannot boot Ubuntu.
5. Performance related to hard-disk access is also slightly slower, more so if the disk image file is fragmented as it is a frequent problem in windows
Only four primary partitions are possible, but you can instead have three primary and any number (well - 127 I think) logical partitions. Linux will happily use a logical partition.
Ok, I went back through the Ubuntu install, but it gave me no opportunity to create logical partitions.
If you already have four primary partitions in use you are stuck - you have to delete one of them, create an extended partition, and then create logical partitions inside the extended partition. You can do this during the installer or you can run gparted from the live CD but if you have data in all four partitions you need to back up what you need first and that is a separate job.
If you're in any doubt, post a screenshot from the GParted program.
If you already have four primary partitions in use you are stuck - you have to delete one of them, create an extended partition, and then create logical partitions inside the extended partition. You can do this during the installer or you can run gparted from the live CD but if you have data in all four partitions you need to back up what you need first and that is a separate job.
Ah, somehow I am getting confused. If I delete the current partition and then create a partition it does offer the choice of creating "Primary" or "Logical." Do I need or want a /boot partition on a dual boot machine? Thanks.
First you need to understand the structure of partitions and how to create them. That's what gparted will help you with.
It's important to understand this ... and it's very important to understand that you can lose all your data and should have backups. But you should have backups anyway.
Secondly, you need to decide what partitions you want to use for this linux installation. By default as you know, Ubuntu and most distros create a swap partition and a single partition for everything else.
It used to be widely recommended to split different parts of the file system into different partitions, but it's not at all necessary and I would not worry about it until you have got to grips with Linux. The only exception is you might want a separate /home partition - read this: Create a separate home partition in Ubuntu - psychocats .net
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