I want to give Linux a shot

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 12:02 pm

One of my family members recently downloaded, unknowingly, a bid deal of viruses and whatnot to my computer. I'm tired of fighting this crap. I plan to rip out my current 40 gig harddrive and put in a fresh 120 gig. I would like to install my old win98 OS and Linux (Ubuntu) so I can duel boot between them.

So, I downloaded the Live CD and have it burned and ready. My question is, when I put my new clean 120 gig harddrive in, what do I do first? Do I install win98 like normal and then install linux after? My goal is to have it where I can boot between the two and have all the files on the harddrive accessible by both OS's. I'm hoping that is possible. I've never had any experience with partitions.

My main use for this will be for developing on the DC. I only assume it will be better in Linux since I'm already using cygwin. Am I wrong? BTW, I've already tried the Live CD and everything works so far that I can tell: sound, video, internet. I like it.

Thanks.

henzenmann · Post by **henzenmann** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 2:22 pm

I don't know what the Ubuntu installer looks like (I'm a Debian user myself), but in general, you want to partition the harddisk, and install Windows on the first partition and Ubuntu on the second one (Windows always has to be on the first partition, Linux doesn't care). You should be able to do the partitioning from the Ubuntu installer.

Ubuntu has a lot of newbie-friendly support. Check out http://www.ubuntuforums.org/ and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Installation

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:02 pm

Thank you. I'll hit up those forums.

henzenmann · Post by **henzenmann** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:56 pm

BTW, if you want to keep the 40gig disk, you can also install Windows on the first disk and Linux on the second, no need for partitions then.

Oh, and you can access Windows partitions/disks from Linux (FAT16/32, NTFS too but that takes some extra work and is only relevant with WinNT/2000/XP), but not the other way round. So you would want to keep the data you need to access from both systems on the Windows partition/disk.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 6:21 pm

Let me see if I got this straight. I leave my 40gig disk in and make it a slave. The 40gig disk contains windows98. I no longer plan to reinstal windows98 since I have returned its stability. The 40gig disk is also full to the brim, only about 500mb left.

So now, I insert my 120gig disk as master and install linux on it. I have all that room but windows cannot access it? That stinks. But wait, if I can access the 40gig disk from Linux, I could move all my music and large files over to the 120gig disk right? I now have plenty of room left on the 40gig disk.

So... If I create files in Linux, how would I go about getting them over to the windows side, if ever need be? Would I have to resort to emailing myself or even burning files to a disk?

Is this what you would do (install linux on the 120gig disk and keep my other exactly the way it is now)?

henzenmann · Post by **henzenmann** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:16 pm

Windows always has to be on the first partition of the first disk (master on the first IDE channel). If you leave Windows on your 40gig disk, you could still partition the 120gig disk, for example make an 80gig FAT32 partition for your "shared" data (this would have to be the first partition on that disk) and a 40gig partition for your Linux installation.
You could also copy your 40gig disk to the 120gig disk, then switch them, make sure Windows still starts correctly from the new disk and then install Linux on the old disk.

You can "mount" your Windows partition under Linux, which means you can access your whole "C:" drive just like a directory. I don't know how Ubuntu or Gnome (the user interface Ubuntu uses) handle this, as I use neither. But I assume that they provide an easy way to do it. If not, you can always set this up yourself if you are not afraid of configuration files

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 7:32 pm

FAT32 discs can be fully read / written from Linux, so you can copy your files back and forth without problems.

The best way is simply to put the new drive in, and install Ubuntu onto that (take up the whole drive). It'll install it's bootloader, and automatically add an option into it's boot menu for Windows 98.

For the newest version of Ubuntu (6.06), the Live CD is the install CD. There should be an "Install" icon on the desktop. Double-click that, and follow the prompts to install Ubuntu. You can even continue working while it's installing, and it'll tell you when it's finished so you can restart when you want.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:00 pm

The B.A. way sounds good. So, using what henzenmann said about windows needing to be on the first drive, I simply insert the 120gig as a slave, install linux on it and I'm set?

BlackAura wrote:FAT32 discs can be fully read / written from Linux, so you can copy your files back and forth without problems.

Back and forth? So windows will be able to read what's on the 120gig disk too? That would be the best scenario.

henzenmann · Post by **henzenmann** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:34 pm

JS Lemming wrote:The B.A. way sounds good. So, using what henzenmann said about windows needing to be on the first drive, I simply insert the 120gig as a slave, install linux on it and I'm set?

Yes.

JS Lemming wrote:
BlackAura wrote:FAT32 discs can be fully read / written from Linux, so you can copy your files back and forth without problems.
Back and forth? So windows will be able to read what's on the 120gig disk too? That would be the best scenario.

Windows won't be able to read it. But under Linux you can copy files back to your Windows disk of course.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:40 pm

Alright, thanks a tun for the info guys. Time to get things going.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:18 pm

Windows can read and write ext2/3 filesystems with a driver, or for occasional read-only access you can use explore2fs.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:26 pm

Dang...... it...... Poot.

My dad doesn't trust the old 40gig disk because it used to make noise. I guess I don't blame him, but this does complicate things. Now I have to read up on how to properly partition my new drive.

A few searches on the Ubuntu forums ought to do the trick.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 9:45 pm

You could always clone the Windows installation onto the new hard drive. Basically, you install the new hard drive (as slave), copy the contents of the entire drive across to the new one, then remove the old drive and put the new one in as master.

Hang about - I'll just try that in VMWare and see if I can come up with some better instructions.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:00 pm

Now that sounds like a good idea! I appreciate you going out of your way to help a crazy foo like me.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 10:56 pm

Here's the plan...

Set up your hard drives as follows:
IDE 1 Master - New 120GB hard drive
IDE 1 Slave - Old 40GB hard drive

Boot your PC from the Ubuntu LiveCD.

There is a nice graphical partition manager on this CD, but I couldn't get it to copy partitions between drives. So we'll have to use parted, a command-line tool.

There's a nice partition editor on the LiveCD (System -> Administration -> Gnome Partition Editor) but it doesn't seem to want to copy partitions correctly. Open it up anyway, just to check where the partitions are.

The first drive (/dev/hda) should be 120GB, and completely blank.

The second drive (/dev/hdb) should be 40GB, with one partition, and full of stuff.

If that's all in order, close down the partition editor. Go to Applications -> Accessories, and select Terminal.

We're just going to do a bit-exact copy of the whole drive. Type the following command exactly:

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hda bs=1M

That copies the entire contents of your old hard drive, including the partition table and bootsector, onto your new one. It'll take a while. Just don't get the parameters the wrong way around - you'd end up erasing your old hard drive, which is definitely not what you want.

When that's one, shut down the PC. Remove your old drive, and then boot. Windows 98 should start up, although it'll only be able to see 40GB of the drive.

You can use the Gnome Partition Editor on the Ubuntu LiveCD to resize the Windows partition before installing Ubuntu, if you want. When installing Ubuntu, just tell it to use all remaining free space on the drive, and it'll take care of the rest of the partition layout.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 10:43 am

Nice! But I'm a bit confused with the partitioning part. Based on this page, I get the impression I'm supposed to make a shared FAT32, SWAP, and HOME partition. Like this image shows:

Or is all that really unnecessary? Or when you said "... and it'll take care of the rest of the partition layout." did you mean it would do that automaticly.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:10 am

It's no wonder you're confused after reading that page. Just let the installer take care of it...

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 4:02 pm

That's a relief. And Ex-Cyber, I just now saw that post you made about how to get windows to read and write ext2/3 filesystems. Everything just got a bid deal simpler.

JS Lemming · Post by **JS Lemming** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 4:27 pm

Hmmm.....When I got to the step where I was supposed to type that command in the terminal, it at first, said access denied. I then vaguely remember reading somewhere that typing 'sudo' yeilds higher power. So I did, and I thought it was working. So about 3 hours later, I come back and see nothing has happened. The curson was blinking right below what I had just inputed so it seemed like it was waiting for me to input more... I then push the dirrectional keys because I was afraid that pusing a letter would result in doing something... kinda like how pusing 'q' in 'man' stops that. But when I pushed the dirrectional keys, it typed wierd things into the terminal. I now question whether it's doing anything at this point...

My terminal looks like this:

Code: Select all

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hda bs=1M
dd: opening `/dev/hdb': Permission denied
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ man sudo
Reformatting sudo(8), please wait...
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hda bs=1M
^[[D^[[C^[[B^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[C^[[D^[[D^[[A^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[A

I hope I didn't scew something up by typing sudo...

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 5:32 pm

Is the HD access light on?