Re: [Sheflug] Ultimate dual booting guide

[Lesley Anne Binks <lesley.binks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Chris Warburton <chriswarbo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote :

> On Fri, 2007-07-06 at 14:16 +0100, Lesley Binks wrote:
> > I have XP installed all over one laptop drive and would like to get 
> > Linux on there too.  I've never dual booted without making sure I have 
> > the required partitions already set up and I do not want to lose my XP 
> > set up.  It's also been a few years since I last dual booted.
> > 
> > I could sit down and repartition and reinstall or buy a partitioning 
> > ssoftware but this set of articles appears to claim that Ubuntu can do 
> > the partitioning for you.
> > 
> > My question is how reliable is the Ubuntu partitioning software?  Will 
> > it preserve the XP install or will it make it unbootable or wreck the
> data?
> > 
> > Before anyone says - go make an XP rescue disk - I don't have a floppy 
> > drive on the laptop.
> > 
> > Regards
> > 
> > L.
> I have always found installing Linux after XP in a dual boot setup to
> work fine, although this is obviously not proof (but I have done it a
> lot). Every sane person who knows how to setup dual-boot will tell you
> to install Windows first then Linux, since Linux plays nice and finds
> any Windows OSs already installed, whereas Windows barges ahead and
> wipes over whatever boot system is there, making any Linux partitions
> inaccessible without reinstalling GRUB over the Windows bootloader (but
> it does let you boot other Windows installations IIRC).
> 

I don't think I have ever set up a dual boot with two M$ 
OS's but in the past my approach has always been to have 
Windows NT or XP installed before installing Linux.  I 
think it is possible to make XP ignore a partition on a 
disk at install time. One simply partitions the disk and 
avoids allocating what will be the Linux partitions.


> I have not used Ubuntu's partitioner (the GParted embedded in Ubuntu's
> Ubiquity installer) since I always set up my partitions with the full
> GParted included on Ubuntu CDs (System>Administration>GNOME Partition
> Editor) and then manually tell the installer how to treat each one. I
> did let my girlfriend try and setup Ubuntu on her own (as a kind of
> usability experiment, with me making sure no damage was done) and I
> remember the Ubiquity-based partition resizing being rather confusing,
> the language used for shrinking the Windows partition didn't make it
> clear whether the given size would be the XP partition or the new Ubuntu
> partition. I think we ended up doing it the wrong way around and had to
> use GParted anyway to sort out the relative sizes after finishing the
> installation.
What isn't clear here is whether you have used either 
GParted or Ubiquity to re-partition a disk.  Perhaps I 
should make it clear I wish to preserve the XP install as 
is and simply have gparted/ubiquity re-arrange the disk 
partitioning to make a new partition for Linux.
> 
> So I would say this: If you know which partitions you need, etc. then
> set them up with the CD before running the installer, then when
> installing tell it you want to manually set each partition yourself. I
> have never had a problem with this method.
> 
IAll information is useful.  I downloaded the Kubuntu 7.04 
only to be told by k3b that it isn't an iso so I can't burn
 it.  
However I have 6.06 on DVD.  

Is the gparted on this capable of repartitioning the drive?


Regards

L.





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