Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
2 edits | Seems a while since dual boot discused.
Searching that term here, most recent was Feb 09, and before that almost a year ago.
Getting a new Win Vista machine 64bit, and before I do much with it would like to set it up for dual boot.... likely Umbuntu since I am most familiar with it. (On a dedicated PC)
Just looking for most painless way to do that.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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usa2k
Please PRAY for Rebekah
Premium,MVM
join:2003-01-26
Canton, MI
clubs: | 64 bit, especially multi-core may be better doing Virtual OSs?
( Like »Xen vs. ESXi )
I'm still wishing for better hardware before I try ... |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Not looking to do any serving operstion just a normal Linux PC platform, dual booted on a Vista Home Premium PC.
And would like to do it out of the box before VISTA mucks up the HDD too much 
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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nwrickert
sand groper
Premium,MVM
join:2004-09-04
Geneva, IL
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T Midwest
| reply to Hayward
When I bought a new Dell, around 2 years ago, that was my plan too. But I quickly discovered that:
Vista owned almost the entire disk;
there was a second partition owned by Vista (I think for recovery);
there was a third partition owned by Dell.
That did not leave me much scope either with disk space or with partition table entries. I had planned to have 3-way boot between linux/Vista/XP.
I decided to nuke the whole setup, and then see what I could do with the Dell reinstall disk. As luck would have it, I could do a complete Vista install using that reinstall disk. So I first partitioned as I wanted: 100M for linux "/boot", 20G for WinXP, 50G for Vista, and a large extended partition for the linux root and home partitions, a shared FAT partition, etc.
It worked out well. I think I used a gparted CD to initially partition. I had no problem installing Vista in its partition. I temporarily hid the XP partition (gave it a different partition type code) before installing Vista. Similarly, I unhid the XP partition, hid the Vista partition before installing XP. After installing all, I unhid. I am booting from the "/boot" partition, where Grub is installed.
One problem I ran into. Vista can be confused if it is not the active boot partition. I temporarily made it the boot partition, and used BCDEDIT to setup the Vista boot manager so I can alternatively use it to get into linux.
Most of the time, I have the "/boot" partition active so Grub boot manager is used. But to install service packs on Vista, I temporarily set the Vista partition to be the active one so that it does not get confused. Then I use the Vista boot manager to boot back into linux, and change the partition back so that Grub boot manager is used.
I'm not advising you to do it the same way - that's your choice. I'm just giving my experience as a data point.
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AT&T dsl; Speedstream 5100b modem; Zyxel NBG334W router; openSuSE 11.0; firefox 3.0.11 |
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Drunkula
Premium
join:2000-06-12
Denton, TX
·Verizon FIOS
| reply to Hayward
My lappy came intsalled with Vista. It had one large C: partition and a smaller recovery partition. I used gparted to shrink the C: partition to make room for Ubuntu. Ubuntu installed fine to the available space and I grub installed to the MBR.
Overall it was quite painless. Grub managed the booting into either Vista or Ubuntu.
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There are 10 types of people that understand binary numbers. Those that do - and those that do not... |
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odinb
join:2001-11-26
Frisco, TX
| reply to Hayward
If you do not specifically need Vista, just wipe the system, install Ubuntu and then run Win XP in a Virtualbox. This way you do not have to reboot the system just to have to fix something in Windows. You also have access to all files from both systems if you map your linux partitions in virtualbox and Win XP.
Unless you play games on win, this is the fastest easiest and least painful way to do it.
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"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." - Benjamin Franklin |
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pablo2525
join:2003-06-23 | +1
And even if you play games, VirtualBox has some _preliminary_ 3D acceleration. I'm not a gamer so I can't share my experience on that front. I do use VirtualBox for my Window's needs. And it works very very well. |
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odinb
join:2001-11-26
Frisco, TX
3 edits | Well, the directX 9 support is availalbe in Virtualbox 3, but I stilll run Virtualbox 2.2.4.
People do however say that games run slow in virtualbox, but guess it will improve over time, this is after all their first release supporting DirectX.
Tried Virtualbox 3 last week to see if I would gain any performance from the multicore support also added in version 3. Had to roll back due to networking issues. Apparently I was not the only one with such issues on version 3 after updating, so I am waiting for a fix...
»forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.···&t=19457
»forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.···&t=19538
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"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." - Benjamin Franklin |
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waynemr
join:2002-01-28
Madison, WI
| reply to Hayward
Actually, I was thinking about doing something similar and would like to know the best sequence for a fresh install to achieve a dual-boot Windows 7 / Ubuntu on a laptop.
All of the user files are on network drives, so I don't need to do any sort of fancy partition work, where some data is available to either OS. I just need the laptop to boot either to Windows 7 or Ubuntu.
So, install Windows 7 first or Ubuntu? I'm thinking I'll spit the drive into two equal 160GB partitions. Install Windows 7 first on one partition and then Ubuntu on the second partition... but would I need some sort of third, tiny boot partition with a loader, or will one of the OS installs do that for me? I seem to recall that ubuntu would do that for you, if you installed it on a system that already had an OS on it. |
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odinb
join:2001-11-26
Frisco, TX | Install windows first, and then Ubuntu. Grub will take care of the menu for OS choices for you automatically.
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"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority." - Benjamin Franklin |
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pablo2525
join:2003-06-23 | reply to odinb
I'm on 2.2.4 as well ... primarily because 3.0 wasn't a production-ready release. I may try 3.0.2 ... after I get back from vacation.  |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
 ·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy
| reply to Hayward
Unless your system is *really* underprovisioned (like one of the $300 laptops), dual-booting seems kinda pointless. Virtualization allows you to have the Windows system "on demand" without having to knock down your primary OS to get to it.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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EUS
Kill cancer
Premium
join:2002-09-10
Montreal, QC
clubs: | reply to Hayward
I dual boot, I feel gaming through virtualization is not a viable solution. |
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rexbinary
Mod King
Premium
join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX
·Verizon FIOS
| said by EUS  :I dual boot, I feel gaming through virtualization is not a viable solution. Same here. I keep a Windows partition on my desktop for gaming. I don't dislike Microsoft enough to put up with the performance hit and compatibility issues of gaming though virtual machines.
And no, consoles don't yet offer all the games I like to play. I wish they did because I'd quit buying desktop computers, buy only consoles for gaming and laptops for computing, and delete that pesky Windows partition. 
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Verizon FiOS subscriber since 2005 | Mac owner since 1990 | Fedora user since 2006 | CentOS user since 2007 | "Anyone who is unwilling to learn is entitled to absolutely nothing." - graysonf | EDIT: I seldom post without an edit. |
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Snavely
join:2003-02-22
Davenport, IA
| reply to Hayward
IMHO the best way to dual-boot (if you have the room in your pc) is to use multiple hard drives. That way you never have to touch the Windows drive.
As an aside, I once set up a virtual multi-boot (8 distros, 2 virtual hard drives) using VMWare Player. Unfortunately it grew too big for my original 80gig hd. |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy
| said by Snavely :IMHO the best way to dual-boot (if you have the room in your pc) is to use multiple hard drives. That way you never have to touch the Windows drive. As an aside, I once set up a virtual multi-boot (8 distros, 2 virtual hard drives) using VMWare Player. Unfortunately it grew too big for my original 80gig hd. Heh. If you wanted to be really sick, you could set your system up to dual-boot VMware and Xen. 
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
2 edits | reply to Snavely
said by Snavely :IMHO the best way to dual-boot (if you have the room in your pc) is to use multiple hard drives. That way you never have to touch the Windows drive. Pretty much rulles out a laptop though doesn't it?... amazinly big drives now but still not dual drives.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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Ian
Premium
join:2002-06-18
ON | reply to Hayward
Pretty quick machine. Depending on what you want to do, maybe running VirtualBox and installing a Linux OS on a Virtual machine could be a way to go. |
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy
| reply to Hayward
said by Hayward :said by Snavely :IMHO the best way to dual-boot (if you have the room in your pc) is to use multiple hard drives. That way you never have to touch the Windows drive. Pretty much rulles out a laptop though doesn't it?... amazinly big drives now but still not dual drives. Depends on the laptop. Particularly if you're using a "workstation replacement" laptop, you can get two internal hard drives. Primary downside of doing so in a laptop is the weight.
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The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -- Bertrand Russell |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| said by nixen :said by Hayward :said by Snavely :IMHO the best way to dual-boot (if you have the room in your pc) is to use multiple hard drives. That way you never have to touch the Windows drive. Pretty much rulles out a laptop though doesn't it?... amazinly big drives now but still not dual drives. Depends on the laptop. Particularly if you're using a "workstation replacement" laptop, you can get two internal hard drives. Primary downside of doing so in a laptop is the weight. Well not saying there aren't any but I have yet to see one anywhere in the doesn't cost a fortune absolute state of the art ones.
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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