Thread: Giving Linux a shot (Ubuntu I think.)

hmm.....I only have 1 HD......Unless I can partition without erasing everything I might not make the switch afterall.....I don't even have anything I can do backups on...

I'll give the Live thing a shot first....see how I like it.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

hmm.....I only have 1 HD......Unless I can partition without erasing everything I might not make the switch afterall.....I don't even have anything I can do backups on...

I'll give the Live thing a shot first....see how I like it.

If you have enough free space, you should be able to partition with no problems. I did.
Its not hard to do.'

Keep us updated.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

hmm.....I only have 1 HD......Unless I can partition without erasing everything I might not make the switch afterall.....I don't even have anything I can do backups on...

I'll give the Live thing a shot first....see how I like it.

Another Linux Live CD for you that is designed for resizing partitions in a non destructive way similar to Norton Partition Magic :

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

HTH

Barney

I've got about 100 gigs left I think....that should be enough I figure. I'll keep you posted. Maybe I'll do a Boot up selection first. I can always fade Windhose out later.

Originally Posted by OLD_SCHOOL

If you have enough free space, you should be able to partition with no problems. I did.
Its not hard to do.'

Keep us updated.

Admittedly I've not tried it as part of an ubuntu install since I've got repartitioning tools but "usually" partitioning during a linux install is a destructive process and "special" tools are required to shrink the original windows partition so linux ones can be created.

Barney

Originally Posted by barneycg

Admittedly I've not tried it as part of an ubuntu install since I've got repartitioning tools but "usually" partitioning during a linux install is a destructive process and "special" tools are required to shrink the original windows partition so linux ones can be created.

Barney

I managed to do it with the latest version of Ubuntu, feisty fawn I believe it was and it did everything for me.

I will add YMMV just to cover my own hide.


@LX 100GB is more than enough.

LX - first, congratulations

Second - I've also started with slackware on floppies learning mostly by trial and error, but the times have drastically changed. Here are couple of points on recent Ubuntus (I havent' installed the 7.10 yet, but that should be your choice and it's the default on the website).

The general process is as follows:
1.) pop in the cd.
2.) reboot the computer (interrupt at bios and set the boot options to be CD)
3.) when linux starts feel free to look around, then click the Install icon on the desktop.
4.) There are several questions that you had to answer, pretty straightforward (language, keyboard variant, name, location, password), EXCEPT ONE PART - the one about partitions
5.) The hardest part was about repartitioning the harddrive - you have to make a separate space for linux (2-4GB is plenty to start and if you do things properly we can help you expand it very easy if you need). I do not remember exactly that part and it may have changed in 7.10, but try to follow the defaults if you can - they are good. If you have to decide on the size - there is a picture with a slider - set it to 4GB. My gripe with the prev. versions is that in the process it never tells you what is goint to happen to Windows. It does the right thing and resizes the windows part, freeing the space you need and preserves Windows, but it doesn't tell you that you need not to worry about this. Hopefully they've done it better this time. The tool that does the resizing is(was) the same gparted that was suggested to you, so no need of a second cd and preparing your disk first. If you get an option of what kind of filesystem to use - ext3 should be the default and your choice if it isn't.
6.) When it asks where to install thee 'boot loader' or 'grub' go with the default and install in the harddrive. This is the correct answer. It will also make an option to boot windows, so no worries there.
7.) They usually have screenshots of the process - may want to look at them and print them out.
8.) Once it works installation of new software/updating the current one is easy. For the updates it checks every day and pops a little orange icon when there is an update, for the installs - there is an application where you just search for software by names/keywords and click 'install'.
9.) It is a scary operation if this is your only computer, but the chances are you will be fine (you read the EULA when you accepted it right )
10.) Read the instructions on their website and see what you think - ask us if you have questions.

enjoy

A bit off topic, but have they finally figure out a safe way to write to an NTFS partition?

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

I've got about 100 gigs left I think....that should be enough I figure. I'll keep you posted. Maybe I'll do a Boot up selection first. I can always fade Windhose out later.

Another option for trying out Linux would be to install it under VMWare. That way you can have Windoze and Linux running at the same time and don't have to worry about repartitioning your hard drive. I've done the opposite - installed Windoze under VMWare on my Linux box when I needed it briefly. At the moment I'm running FreeBSD under VMWare on my Linux box. As soon as I get another hard drive I'll probably switch from Linux to FreeBSD.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

A bit off topic, but have they finally figure out a safe way to write to an NTFS partition?

ilija - sortof. it's much safer than it use to be, but it's not perfectly safe. it's been into the kernel for at least a year. my interest though is in better hfs+, but that won't happen anytime soon as apple is much worse than microsoft because they are small enough to get away with almost anything.
the problems with ntfs and hfs+ are similar - you can write, but you can't fsck. so you can resize your ntfs partition safely, but then you have to fsck it by booting windows (it knows that it's in need of that and does it).
I've written to ntfs and hfs+ for as long as i could and the only problems have been the inconvenience that every now and then i have to fsck (linux knows about that too and won't mount rw)
and FSCK is just file-system-check for the uninitiated