I'm new to linux on the home pc. I have used it before in my programming classes vi editing, java executing, etc, but never had to do an install.

I want to dual boot XP and ubuntu on my acer. I think my XP install has the whole C:\ partition in NTFS. From what i gather, linux doesn't get along with NTFS. How should i go about this?

anything else i should watchout for during the install?

thanks.

7/24/2007 3:10:58 PM

i never had any issues getting it to dual boot. ubuntu setup did all the hard stuff for me, and if you've ever messed with a dos partition manager and have basic reading skills the linux one isn't too hard to mess around with.

7/24/2007 3:17:26 PM

Ubuntu (or at least the newest version) will automatically mount the NTFS partition for you. There are plenty of HOW TOs if you google, but honestly you shouldn't have to, Ubuntu's setup is pretty self-explanatory.

7/24/2007 3:46:59 PM

very nice

my laptop runs like crap on XP.

I want to compare the two o/s's and see how i like using this flavor.

7/24/2007 3:54:04 PM

apparently i don't have enough ram to even get live CD running so i can install. It lags out and barely even starts up.

7/25/2007 12:46:26 AM

ubuntu will READ an ntfs drive. to write to it, you need to go through a howto. pretty simple, though

7/25/2007 1:12:11 AM

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/32967/113/

here's some info

7/25/2007 12:03:26 PM

If your computer has at least 128 MB of RAM, it should run Breezy (Ubuntu 5) or Dapper (Ubuntu 6) just fine. Fiesty (Ubuntu 7) can be run on little memory as well.

The Fiesty install CD has qtParted on it which should be able to resize the NTFS partition for you. Otherwise, you could borrow a disk partitioning utility from someone to resize the NTFS partition. Fiesty will only need about 5GB of space for the root partition and the swap partition should be about 1.5 * the amount of RAM in your system.

The only thing you need to be aware of when installing Fiesty is that gParted (the partition editor built into he setup wizard) fucks up constantly. Set up your partitions in qtParted or another partition editor before beginning the install and just tell it to use the partitions you already created. The partitions you assign to the root directory, "/", and swap space will be formatted when it installs, so don't put anything on there before installing linux. Once you tell it where to install, it does pretty much everything for you.


If you want more control over what gets installed, you can use the "Alternate" install CD available from their website. This CD is not nearly as friendly to someone without linux experience though.

7/25/2007 2:45:03 PM

it's just the damn live CD is killing my computer. if i could avert the whoe liveCD thing and just install, life would be good.

Anyway, come to find out both my partions (two 20gb) are both fat32. Not NTFS. But if i ever put it on my desktop, its noted.

7/25/2007 3:06:43 PM

okay apparently there is a text base installer. live-cd is by default now.

7/25/2007 4:53:37 PM

got it install and i really like it


for some reason it won't pick up or connect to any wireless networks. any ideas how to troubleshoot it?

7/25/2007 11:04:19 PM

old laptop + wireless + linux = world of hurt

might be drivers but find a ndiswrapper guide

7/26/2007 9:31:05 AM

usually you can find information by googling

*your network interface* ubuntu howto

7/26/2007 10:08:06 AM

i found a good ndiswrapper walkthrough and got my wireless running last night and everything was great.

got up this morning and it couldn't even detect my wireless card.


trying to figure this crap out now

7/26/2007 11:25:57 AM