Attempting to dual boot Win7 and Ubuntu11.04 - partitioning issue

I will eventually install Ubuntu onto a separate drive using Wubi, so as to keep my Windows boot loader safe from Ubuntu's GRUB boot loader!

When you put Linux on a separate HD it's a good idea to create a swap partition. These are more efficient than Windows pagefile.sys since it doesn't go through a file system. It just indexes into the partition and writes blocks when it swaps out data.

Also I would take a look at Mandriva One CD if you have broadband via a network card on that machine. The installer is far superior. The basic system is on the CD but any other packages you want you select with the package tool. It downloads the packages. When you boot you come up in an X window manager with all the packages installed. All you have to do is log in. Ubuntu got all this buzz but Mandriva(which when I used it was called Mandrake) is very easy to set up, configure, and modify. Plus the built in disk paritioning set up in the installer is better than Ubuntu(at least as of when I tried Ubuntu maybe a year ago.)

It's a free ISO download. Way betterer. :)

Don't start with Linux by dual booting. Run it as a virtual machine and make sure that it suits you and it's something that you like before you commit real resources to it. Seriously, I haven't had a need to dual boot in quite some time. It runs great as a virtual machine...and well enough that most people discover that Linux really isn't their cup of tea anyway.

Thanks for the update, I posted something to consider at your other thread also.

Wasn't all that hard in hindsight :) )

Yeah, the Linux installers have come a long way. What made it easier was PCI winning the bus wars. When I first did Slackware you pretty much just had scripts that got you to a console login prompt. And even for that you had to fill in a bunch of stuff about your video hardware, type of mouse etc..

edit: when I say "fill in a bunch of stuff" I mean you had to find out the horiz and vert sync rates of your monitor and other stuff about your video card. It wasn't even easy to get the Mouse to work right sometimes if it wasn't standard MS mouse.

There was so much varied hardware around. Just on system bus you had ISA, EISA, Microchannel, Vesa bus, and others I can't remember. Finally PCI came in and simplified things.


If you wanted XWindows you had to download the software and read a book on configuring it. Now you fill in your preferences and it comes up on the first boot.

Still, when you get into the Linux nitty gritty it helps to know something about the scripts in /etc and subdirectories. The little XWindow applets just call the scripts. They are still there. :) Good to know some bash shell scripting.