EZ-52 on 21/12/2008 at 13:16
For sometime, I've wanted to create a system that can dual boot into linux, however every guide I read it mentions partioning hard drives and figure it's a bit risky to do so. However my computer seems to have hit a state of blue screen "Windows Protection Errors", so I figure its time to scrub the hard drive and reinstall fresh.
It's an old pc, with 2 hard drives: a 4gb c: drive (used for Windows only), and a 2nd hard drive that after a dogey partioning process has ended up with a 2gb d: partion and a 29gb e: partion, which is used for all the other software (which unsurprisingly consists of pretty much nothing more than Thief, FM's and Shock 2). There also seems to be about 1gb in unpartioned space that can be put to good use.
So heres what I thought I could do: c: drive to reinstall windows, d: drive to install linux and use that 1gb unpartioned space for the swap file, which would leave my e: drive untouched.
So basically, is that possible? If so, how do I go about installing? Some places say Windows should be installed first, others say linux first? And am I right in saying that linux will set up a bootloader allowing me to choose what os I boot into?
Zerker on 21/12/2008 at 14:09
Yes, you are correct; Linux will set up a bootloader for you, so you're better off installing it second so Windows doesn't end up touching it. As for your drive setup; that sounds good except the 2 GB sounds a little small for the Linux setup; I would shuffle the partition size between the 2 GB and 29 GB split on your second drive to give yourself more like 5 GB. When installing things in Linux, you don't have much say on where they go, so it'll fill itself up fast when you add software to your setup (even though you can share the other partition with Windows for music and things).
Depending on how old the machine is, I would also suggest (
http://www.xubuntu.org/) Xubuntu as an alternative. It runs on Xfce instead of Gnome, so it's a little more suited to older hardware. You can run all the same software on either, so it's your choice.
So in summary, here's the process I'd recommend:
* Install Windows into the 4 GB partition you already had
* Boot to the Ubuntu/Xubuntu Live CD
* Follow the directions in the Live CD until you get to the drive setup
* Tell it you want to repartition the second drive to 5 GB ext3 mounted on "/", 1 GB swap (assuming the unallocated space was on this drive), and the remainder as FAT32 for Windows to use, mounted somewhere under "media". I think it can even resize the existing partition without losing existing data, but you may need to defragment it first.
If you wanted to add me to IM and had another computer nearby, I can walk you through the process while doing the same thing to a virtual machine.
ZylonBane on 22/12/2008 at 03:29
For the love of god, man. Windows ME?!?!? :erg:
Ulukai on 22/12/2008 at 13:11
Indeed. If you must install an archaic Windows operating system, at least do the decent thing and beg, borrow or steal Windows 98.
bikerdude on 22/12/2008 at 16:08
Quote Posted by Ulukai
Indeed. If you must install an archaic Windows operating system, at least do the decent thing and beg, borrow or steal Windows 98.
Im with Ulikai on this, but he said it first.
EvaUnit02 on 22/12/2008 at 18:49
Windows 98 Second Edition to be specific.
gunsmoke on 23/12/2008 at 18:54
I think I'd go for 2000. It is similar in req's, but much more compatible w/newer soft. (unless you are going for comp. w/ OLD ass games)
Zerker on 23/12/2008 at 22:19
Or Linux. Oh wait.
EZ-52 on 2/1/2009 at 11:43
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
For the love of god, man. Windows ME?!?!? :erg:
Quote Posted by Ulukai
Indeed. If you must install an archaic Windows operating system, at least do the decent thing and beg, borrow or steal Windows 98.
Quote Posted by Bikerdude
Im with Ulikai on this, but he said it first.
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
Windows 98 Second Edition to be specific.
Quote Posted by gunsmoke
I think I'd go for 2000. It is similar in req's, but much more compatible w/newer soft. (unless you are going for comp. w/ OLD ass games)
Yup, ha! I figured this would come up. The system was actually originally a Windows 98 Second Edition (and still have the cd-rom because those were the days when you bought a new system you got the disk rather than the OS backup being located in some partion of a hard drive) bought around 1999 and was upgraded to ME sometime a few years ago, for the simple reason that I was fed up having to find and install drivers for USB sticks / MP3's etc, which ME supported out of the box. I was originally going to go for Windows 2000 but figured that anything NT based may be over kill for the system.
Quote:
That sounds good except the 2 GB sounds a little small for the Linux setup; I would shuffle the partition size between the 2 GB and 29 GB split on your second drive to give yourself more like 5 GB.
I'm guessing that shuffling the partions will destroy all data?
Quote:
Depending on how old the machine is, I would also suggest Xubuntu as an alternative. It runs on Xfce instead of Gnome, so it's a little more suited to older hardware. You can run all the same software on either, so it's your choice.
Ah great! I'll check that out then first and possibly install that instead, like I said I really no nothing about Linux so thanks for the advice.
Zerker on 2/1/2009 at 13:48
Quote Posted by EZ-52
I'm guessing that shuffling the partions will destroy all data?
Depends on what you use to partition it. If you use FDISK, then yes. If you use gparted, then you should be able to preserve it. There is a gparted live CD you can burn for a dedicated partitioner (which is useful to have around), but I *think* the basic partition interface in the installer for (X)ubuntu uses the same libraries. Why don't I run an experiment using Virtual Machines and I'll get back to you on that?
