Dual Boot Setup

I occassionaly help other residents here at this Assisted Care Facility. Several of them have asked about getting another operating system because of the demise of Win XP.
In this regard, I am thinking of familiarizing myself with a second operatring sytem. I am thinking of dual booting an Ubuntu system. My computer has plenty of space on the hard drive for this. I am running W7 Ultimate without any hardware problems.So, I would expect the computetr to support installing another operating sysytem.
What do you guys think?

Bill

Good move Bill.

There are 2 ways to do a dual boot of Linux:

1. To the same hard disk - complex
2. To a separate hard disk - easier

The second option also has the added benefit, of it something goes wrong, the Windows installation is not affected in the least - as a Linux beginner, i would recommend this route.

There are a good few free Linux distributions. Some are complex, others not. Those that mimic the Windows functionality to a large degree are LinuxMint and Zorin.

Zorin actually has a useful function to make the entire desktop look and behave like either XP or Windows 7 (incl. a classic Start menu)

I would suggest trying Zorin first.

With an XP look & feel:



With a Windows 7 look & feel:

Boy! That was a quick reponse. Thanks.
The following is a site with instructions for a dual boot. What do you think?
Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu in Perfect Harmony
I probably use the free ZORIN.

Bill

If you don't have a 2nd hard disk, than that would do nicely. You could also try this one if you like - its Mint specific but the same applies to other distros:

Dual Boot - Windows 7 and Linux

Create an image of Windows 7 before you start installing Linux, regardless of which way you go about it.

Golden said:

If you don't have a 2nd hard disk, than that would do nicely. You could also try this one if you like - its Mint specific but the same applies to other distros:

Dual Boot - Windows 7 and Linux

Create an image of Windows 7 before you start installing Linux, regardless of which way you go about it.

I created a image of c: (System) drive
I completed PartA of the tutorial and got a complete satisfactory. see attached capture2.
I'm not sure I really got a GOOD flash drive because of the errors (12) that were displayed in the dialogue. see attached capture 1

As I read further to see what to do next I find some further possible obstacles.My drive management setup is not the same as you have.I have no 100Mb partition as well as a data partition. also note that the boot option is already in the C; partition..What does that do to the instructions in your tutorial?

Also, I tried to boot from the flash drive. Couldn't. If I remember correctly I got into BIOS some time ago and could not b oot from a USB port. The only options available were DVD rom drive and the Hdd. I am using a ASUS P53E Notebook computer. Can I use a CD?

Your Zorin download looks to be corrupted. I would download it again.

Yes, you can boot from DVD.

The 100MB system partition should not matter.....I'll confirm that once I'm home this evening.

Bill, you don't need to be concerned by the lack of 100MB system reserved partition. Simply Skip Part D Step 2 of the tutorial.

I'm between a "rock and a hard place". I downloadecd Zolin again and ran part A again. Got the same errors.
So I tried to use a DVD instead of a flash drive. Ran Part A again, had to click on "see all drives". Got an error immediately,"cannot boot from this media" or something like that. Continued with Part A and wasn't able to copy ANY files. Last error msg was, "media write protected". I was able to copy to the DVD, however, using the W7 native command. Also I changed permissions on the DVD media to ALL.
I am presently downloading the 32bit MINK. Petra I think. Will try that. If that doesn't work will try the other tuitorial.

Bill

Bill. You will need to use a writable DVD.