During my 8 years of Linux on and off usage I have tried more distros than I have chocolate bars. Each one of my previous encounters meant that I had to spend at least 2 days configuring before I have a desktop that I was somewhat comfortable with. With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn's latest test beta --for the first time ever-- this was not the case. I was up and running with all the niceties I wanted within 2 hours.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Yes, I've done it, but watch out for horrible Vista installer bugs (I'm assuming you're installing Vista and not XP) related to partitions! What I did was this:
* Boot into the Ubuntu live CD and run the GNOME Partition Manager.
* Wipe off all the partitions that currently exist (I'm assuming you don't want to keep your original Windows install here).
* Create a small (32MB? Maybe less?) NTFS partition at the start of the disk. I marked it as bootable just to be on the safe side.
* Create a second NTFS partition right after the first one to place your Vista install into - I'd recommend a bare minimum of 10GB, but really you want 30-40GB.
* Create third partitions (and more...) for Linux (ext3, swap, whatever - you'll probably have to go into extended partitions) after the two NTFS ones.
* Boot into the Vista install DVD - when you get to the partition list, it only listed from partition 2 onwards ! Yep, some bizarre "feature" there [maybe it wants to install the boot stuff in the first partition?].
* Select the second partition and install Vista on that.
* Boot into the Ubuntu live CD when you're done with Vista and install Ubuntu onto the 3rd partition onwards - on the next reboot, you'll get a GRUB menu that also includes Vista.
One further Vista installer bug - it will *not* reformat ext3 partitions to NTFS! It used to be able to do this in the early betas of Vista, but they "broke" it (deliberately?) in the release candidates and final version. Hence, you must do your repartitioning/formatting beforehand for best results.
Member since:2007-02-17
//Has anyone tried installing it as a dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu?//
Yes. Just install Windows first to a blank hard disk, but do not use the whole disk ... leave about 30 GB unused (or at least 8 GB) for a decent Linux install.
Once you have gone through the painful Windows install process, then install Ubuntu from a liveCD, and select the option "install to unused space of hard disk" during the install sequence from the liveCD. You will automatically end up with a correct dual-boot installation.
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Member since:
2005-08-12
Has anyone tried installing it as a dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu? Coz the partioner won't let me do anything nor see even if I create Ext3/SWAP partitions before hand. I think this bug is documented and the fix didn't make it into Herd5. What solution do I have, anyone had any luck?