Installing UBUNTU in win7

[rachankamath]

I need to install ubuntu 9.10 for my project at college.I have win7 and win xp dual boot installed right now on my acer aspire 5738g laptop.

ubuntu 9.10 has an option of installing on a separate drive using a bootable cd or it can be installed inside windows,from windows just like any other game.I wanted to know whether both modes of installation are the same? will i be able to use al d features ? and how shud i configure the boot loader which already has win 7 n winxp as the 2 options


P.S it can be either win 7 or win xp,i need to install ubuntu in any one..

 

[Tews]

Yes either will work for your purposes.... Btw, I would strongly suggest a course in sentence structure and spelling...

 

[rachankamath]

thx

Yes either will work for your purposes.... Btw, I would strongly suggest a course in sentence structure and spelling...

thx but what about the bootloader? and I write in bullets or different paragraphs because people usually don't bother reading a whole paragraph.Pardon the occasional commas being misplaced.

 

[theog]

As you have a Acer Aspire 5738g noteboot, take look at this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/59170-important-notice-acer-3410-5738-a.html

 

[fseal]

I would personally suggest downloading Sun's virtual box and run Ubuntu as a virtual machine. It installs 10x faster, has ZERO chance of FUBARing your W7 install, the VM runs very close to full speed, and you have the ability to install multiple distros, save them and when you enevitably screw one over (and you will) you can quickly restore aprevious version in a flash.

[Edit] Oh and also you get cut and paste of files between windows and Linux and all kind of other goodies

The only reason NOT to do this is esoteric hardware access. Like requiring broadcasting on TCP to work or something.

 

[rachankamath]

As you have a Acer Aspire 5738g noteboot, take look at this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/59170-important-notice-acer-3410-5738-a.html

I'm sorry,but that information you provided is for the overheating of the adaptor or palm rest.I'm not getting the connection between Ubuntu and the link.I am a newbie to the world of laptops.

 

[rachankamath]

I would personally suggest downloading Sun's virtual box and run Ubuntu as a virtual machine. It installs 10x faster, has ZERO chance of FUBARing your W7 install, the VM runs very close to full speed, and you have the ability to install multiple distros, save them and when you enevitably screw one over (and you will) you can quickly restore aprevious version in a flash.

[Edit] Oh and also you get cut and paste of files between windows and Linux and all kind of other goodies

The only reason NOT to do this is esoteric hardware access. Like requiring broadcasting on TCP to work or something.

thanks fseal,but I am new to this,don't quite know how a virtual box functions and not sure about what my project requirements would be,so I would be requiring all the features including the TCP you mentioned.I wanted to know how to get the bootloader to show all the 3 os in my system after I install Ubuntu 9.10 in win 7 or xp

 

[fseal]

You do get normal TCP networking, serial ports, CDROM if you want.

I mentioned TCP broadcasting but it's really only used for local network service discovery and not used much on Linux normally at all.

Setting up the virtualbox I found to be quite a bit easier than even setting up most distros native. The video, sound and networking are all almost 100% guaranteed to work right off the bat whereas it's a real crapshoot of debugging after a native install, frequently having to hand edit the x config files to even get the GUI working :/ (I've installed dozens of versions of distros over years and years and it's always a crap shoot, even today)

Virtualbox and VMware have made my multi platform linux development insanely better.

I don't know how to properly get dual booting working with Windows 7 but I have read a LOT of horror stories about W7 and Linux installs wiping out each others boot records. Something I battled with a lot in XP but it reads like W7 is even more finicky than XP/2k were... I'm not keep to try it myself

One thing you can do to avoid the problem which I ended up doing with native installs is I have a ton of old HDs around and I put my OS drive on a drive tray and I just swap out my Windows drive for DistroX when I need to work on it and that way not have to deal with the constant booting issues (Course I always had at least 6 distros going at once so is just made sense to have it that way anyway)

But I cant explain well enough how great it is to have cut and paste working between windows and Linux machines and be able to run one program on windows and another on Linux at the same time on the same machine...

 

[pparks1]

When you install Ubuntu, if you do it side by side, you will get the Ubuntu bootloader installed in the MBR. From there, if you pick Windows, it will then launch your Windows NT bootloader and give you the option to choose between your two windows operating systems.

 

[rachankamath]

thx

hey thx a lot fseal,I decided to go with the virtual box.My laptop is acer aspire 5738g and I have installed win7 n winxp dual boot. It says win 7 is a 64 bit operating system.I want to install Ubuntu 9.10 on win xp using virtual box.

1. which version of virtual box do I need to download?

2. the partition space used while setting up Ubuntu using virtual box is used from which part of the hard disk?

3. If the whole process doesn't work out for me,can I uninstall virtual box just like any other software from control panel and will I be back to normal os again?

 

[Saltgrass]

Would using a Live version of the OS be useable? You do not have to install it, but you have just about all the normal utilities.

You would not be able to install programs and such if that what your project entails.

There is a lot of information about dual booting with Ubuntu on that site.

 

[DeaconFrost]

There is only one version of VirtualBox. It installs like a normal application, and uses the .iso files to install the guest OSes, which would be Ubuntu in this case. In fact, if your specs allow, I'd vitual XP as well, but that's for another day.

I say this, not be an ass, but as a suggestion...find a friend who's more familiar with computers and have them look over your shoulder while you do this. You won't mess up anything on your host OS (Windows 7), but it never hurts to have help standing nearby. VirtualBox is very simple to use once you understand what it is you are working with.

 

[fseal]

hey thx a lot fseal,I decided to go with the virtual box.My laptop is acer aspire 5738g and I have installed win7 n winxp dual boot. It says win 7 is a 64 bit operating system.I want to install Ubuntu 9.10 on win xp using virtual box.

1. which version of virtual box do I need to download?

2. the partition space used while setting up Ubuntu using virtual box is used from which part of the hard disk?

3. If the whole process doesn't work out for me,can I uninstall virtual box just like any other software from control panel and will I be back to normal os again?

There is just a single download for 32 and 64bit virtual box. Now I'm not at my machine and you've got me wondering if it went into the 32 or 64 bit programs folder. But you can run 32 or 64 bit "guest" oses (Ubuntu in your case) on 32 or 64bit windows...

It creates a virtual partition, basically just a single 8 gig file on your harddrive. You can copy it off your laptop or copy one back on, even maybe find ones on the net already (though that is a little iffy from a security standpoint). Inside that 8 gig file the distro install will create the swap and root partitions like normal.

Yup, it's just a regular program

 

[rachankamath]

Installed

Thx a lot guys! I installed virtualbox and then ubuntu 9.10,everything is working fine but I am not getting the full screen,My laptop is 15.6" widescreen,any problem with that or can I change it to full screen by some other method? also is there any way to configure my ATI mobility radeon HD 4570 to view some of its 3d effects?

 

[fseal]

Read about the the client services addon for virtual box (on the virtual box web site). There are some proreams you can ijnstall (or maybe have to build and install depending on the dirstro) that allow you to dynamically resize or full screen the window. Also allows 3d use of the video card and better mouse integration and all kinds of other features. Well worth spending a few minutes getting it running in your client OS.