Hi! I am a structural engineering major taking an intro C++ programming course required of all engineering students at my university. My professor requires the use of Linux for our projects and coursework so I figured I would give dual-booting a try...It's not always convenient to use a campus computer lab.

I've read several tutorials, and so far all I've been able to do is download the iso file. I've tried a few different programs such as "Infra Recorder" to try and burn it to a disk--the only ones I could find are DVD-Rs (is this a potential issue?)
All of the programs I've tried (including right clicking on the iso file and choosing "Burn to Disc") say that I have no recorders available. I'm not exactly sure what this means or how to fix it. Is my computer just not capable of burning DVD's...? I bought it refurbished so it's probably a few years old.


This is the tutorial I've been going by, if that helps anyone--
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot


Also, I've heard it's possible to do this with a flash drive...I have one I'm willing to sacrifice if that's any easier to explain.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

It sounds like the computer doesn't have a DVD burner, which means you can't burn a DVD.

You could use a USB for installation, but since a USB drive is a storage device you can often end up with drive naming issues on your first boot after installation. Not to mention that re-partitioning the drive for dual booting in the first place can be rather dangerous.

What are the specs of your computer? It would probably be easier to just install Linux in a VM in Windows rather than going through the mess and hassle of dual booting, provided your computer has the power to do it. VirtualBox is an easy choice for a VM platform if you want to go that route.

I know this probably sounds stupid but...what exactly are specs? And I'm looking into VirtualBox right now. Thanks for the quick response!

processor, ram, available hard drive space...anything else that might be applicable.

Dual booting pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Just follow these steps. Boot up Windows and shrink the Windows partition (the C: drive). To do this, right click My Computer and click Manage and go into the Disk utility. I usually shrink it to take up about half of the hard disk space. Back up all of your important stuff to an external media just in case you scew up the installation. Download an ISO image of the distro you want. Ubuntu is a great one for beginners. If you want to install using a USB flash drive (I recommend this so you don't waste CDs. A flash drive is always reusable), download Unetbootin. It's just a .exe file. Run it (you must be Administrator). It's very simple. Choose your ISO image and MAKE SURE it's set to USB drive at the bottom with the correct drive letter. Click OK and wait for it to install. When finished, shut down the computer and boot from the USB drive. Launch the install program. It's pretty simple in Ubuntu and variants. When it asks you whether to install alongside Windows or replace it, click "Choose something else". You should get a partitioning tool. The NTFS partition is your Windows partition. Leave that one alone. In the free space, create a 1 GB swap area and make the rest of it an ext4 partition. Click the ext4 partition and where it says "Mount Point" choose the / from the drop-down menu. Apply the changes and continue with the installation.

Basically, just follow this guy's tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNCSbTyUzoM He uses a CD, but it's the same process if you've loaded it onto a USB drive.

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you DO NOT want to "burn to disk" a ISO !!!!!!!!!!!!
a ISO MUST !!!!! be burned as a image !!!!!


you can not move it to a dvd as a DATA DVD

select "burn as image " !!!!!!

and use the SLOWEST SPEED say x2 or x4

Windows OS's do not have the software needed installed from the install dvd
as in you MUST !!! use third party software


if you already spent the $60 USD on "Nero " then use that

but there is a FREE program called "CDBurnerXP "
yes it's name sounds "fishy" but it is a real program and is GOOD
it will run on win7 64 bit and burn iso install DVD's
http://download.cnet.com/CDBurnerXP/...-10409086.html
home page
https://cdburnerxp.se/

Yes it is possible to use a usb thumb drive
BUT ( and this is a BIG ONE )
it will be DEAD SLOW

i have a few OS's installed to flash drives and while they are "usable" i use that term VERY LOOSELY

10 to 15 sec or so open just a new folder
as in it takes a long time to open a folder once you double click on it
so LONG that you start to wonder it you really DID double click it
and you do it again and now after 30 sec you have the folder opened TWICE

and if you want to move a file that is say bigger than a few Kb ... that will take time
if it is a few Meg
say a 30 meg youtube vid
start coping it and go have dinner
it might be done in an hour

and the internet web speed
a 300 meg update for fedora 19 TOOK 9 HOURS to download and install !!!!!!

so yes you CAN use a usb2 flash thumb drive
BUT ...

now just your normal everyday dual boot is rather easy
a triple boot is even easy ( on one box i have Win7 64 bit, OpenSUSE 12.3 64 bit ,and SciebntificLinux 6.4 64 bit )

use the win7 disk tools the first
DEFRAG !!!
then re DEFRAG
then make space for the second os
( leave the new partition blank )
install your Linux OS to that second partition

mind you i prefer to let MS have the MBR and install grub to the FIRST linux partition
and "chaiinload" the grub win7 entry to the Windows bootloader

I've dual booted in the past, and needless to say, GRUB, LILO, and I don't get along. So, I've chosen a different approach:

Another option is to install Win and Linux on separate physical disks. Instead of a true dual boot through GRUB/LILO, you can boot into Win/Linux based on which hard drive(s) are enabled/disabled in the BIOS configuration. Considering you're installing Linux for school and won't be booting/switching both OSes frequently, this means the Linux OS may be used much less than your Windows. Thus, going into the BIOS (some would say an inconvenience) removes headaches that I've experienced associated with LILO/GRUB, and prevents borking your MBR when (not if) GRUB/LILO poops itself. That said, it's totally up to you how to configure; just thought I'd add my two cents.

Input from other users on this topic would be appreciated.

You can boot isos from a flash drive. Various ways to configure that with sysconfig or easy2boot in windows or linux. Since I already have linux around I basically clone my existing system or do a fresh install on a USB stick and install grub on the stick. Most post-2006 computers have a boot options menu or hotkey at boot time to select the USB device as the bootable. Or you can use a basic grub-cd to boot the config on the stick for really old boxes. Easier said than done, but it's not rocket science and fairly well documented.

@John VV I've really never had Linux run so slow from USB it's unusable, even on PCs with USB 1.0. I guess it just depends on the distro you use. Even if it does run incredibly slow, all you're doing with the USB drive is just installing. After it installs to the computer, you're running it from the hard drive. I don't think defragging is really necessary since Windows already does some of that when it shrinks the partition, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

@alpo85 That is a great idea if your computer has multiple hard disks, but the OP most likely only has one hard disk on that laptop. I know memory swapping is much faster if the swap file is on a different hard disk from the OS. I've never used two hard drives before, so I don't know how you'd configure the bootloader. I assume you'd just select which hard drive you want to boot in the BIOS setup. LILO isn't really used that much anymore. Most distros today such as Ubuntu use GRUB. I've never had any problems at all with GRUB. It gives you a nice menu at startup that lets you choose which OS you want to boot.

For the OP, there is a free program called imgburn if you really want to burn the image to CD/DVD. This is probably the most popular image burning program for Windows and it's really simple to use. Burning is different from just copying and pasting to the disk. It's sort of how you can have an audio CD with tracks that plays in any CD player, or you can have a CD with wav files. I recommend using a USB flash drive or a CD/DVD-RW so you can erase it and keep using it after you install Linux. With a standard CD-R, once you've written something to the disk, it can't be erased.

Using an EFI platform, I keep the boot device sequence the same (first is Win7; second is RHEL6.5). If I want to boot into RHEL, I disable the Win7 hard drive and enable the RHEL drive which causes the BIOS to only find the bootloader on the only active drive. In this case, GRUB is configured only to boot into RHEL and there's no selection to boot into Win7. To get to Win7, I disable the RHEL drive and enable the Win7 drive. The BIOS takes care of the rest.

In my experience, GRUB has caused all sorts of issues with the Windows MBR - so when I did my last install, I wanted to avoid a GRUB dual-boot. Note: No matter what, you still need GRUB to start the Linux kernel.

Just in case the DVD or usb options don't work - you can use Windows to create a partition for linux, and then install without burning a DVD.
You can use Virtualbox
http://www.raymond.cc/blog/how-to-te...-to-cd-or-dvd/

I'd agree with using ImgBurn as the tool and make sure you burn as type ISO, not as type file.
Of course make sure its an ISO image you're burning as the src.

There's also Wubi, which is pretty easy to do, but you'll have less disk space and file I/O will be a bit slower.