Dual-booting Vista and Ubuntu!

FlightSimBoy

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So, I was wanting to play around with a distro of Linux, and I heard a lot of good things about Ubuntu. So, I decided to download the latest distro and dual-boot it.

It runs pretty good, I just have to find all the drivers for my GPU and sound, and then I'm good to go... not... I don't know the first thing about Linux.

So, where can I find some good tutorials on how to get it set up. I have it installed completely on a separate partition (I'm actually posting from it now) Now, keep in mind, for some reason, I was only able to make a 12GB partition, but I think that will be fine since Vista will be my primary OS.

Heres some stuff I want to learn how to set up: Beryl, Wine, and that crazy desktop thing where you can make the windows look like they are water or something.

So far, I like it! I just have no idea where to begin with it.
 
Welcome to the club! I'm a newbie here myself trying to see a distro running along with Vista on the default drive. You won't need the drive space that Windows or Mac is more likely to use however.

One freeware found for dual booting another version of Windows or even a Linux distro is called EasyBCD. The latest version is found at http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

For Linux you may want to see a second "swap" partition created as well as the "root" used for system files. Unlike the paging file seen in Windows that reservses some hard drive space for virtual memory Linux uses a separate partition for that. The size depends on the amount of memory installed while 2gb in size is typical.

Need a drive tool? The Gnome Partitiion Editor or GParted and another called QParted are the ones used for Linux. Often that will be included on a live disk as well as an install cd. Or you can download it from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843

The general guide for using GParted can be read over at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/generalities/gparted.htm

Gnome and KDE are the only two desktops I've tried here so far. The live to install distro being tried here is ubuntu 7.10.
 
Welcome to the light side! Well, kinda. So you are looking to for tutorials about how to do things in Ubuntu. I would recommend that you check out a couple of pages. The first is: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/. This is basically the Ubuntu help for everything. Just do a search for it and if it is possible it will be there.

Next just a little update for you. Beryl doesn't exist any more. At one point a couple of years ago there were to programs one was called Beryl, and the other was Compiz. About a year ago, The people the created Compiz took over Beryl. So, now there is a program called Compiz-Fusion. That is what you are going to want to install.

The next program that you said that you want to get is Wine. That is cool and all but, what programs from windows are you looking to use through wine? Because, I bet you could find a program just as good that is open source.

As for the last one, I am not sure what program that is. But I will do a little research and try to find it.

Now then, you are using Linux, there are a couple of things that you are going to need to learn how to do. The first is learn how to use terminal. It is the equivalent of command in windows. Check out this link for a beginners guide to general commands that you might use a lot.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal?action=show&redirect=HowToUseTheTerminal

There is a lot of other really good information that I can give you if you need, so feel free to IM me anytime, to set up IM in Ubuntu will will want to use Pidgin. It is really easy to use, and i will help you the best you can. Again welcome to the light side.

Cheers!
 
is it possible to use windows applications on linux? like windows live, office etc. or even normal games for windows?
 
Yes. It is possible. However, there are alternatives to it. First you ask about windows live. There is a program called Pidgin, that is a multi-protocol instant messenger. That is to say that you can have more than one instant messenger account open in the same list. Like I have my two aim accounts, my yahoo, and Gmail account open in the same window. I think that you can have a Windows live account open too, but I am not positive. http://www.pidgin.im

As for office, there is an open source office sweet called Open Office. It has all the programs for Microsoft office, and is free. It also comes with Ubuntu.

The other thing you said was normal games. Do you mean like Half Life 2, and CS and CSS, COD, stuff like that. The answer is yes. There are two programs that I know about. One is called WINE. This is an emulator, it will allow you to run any windows program. It can be hard to work with at times I have found. The other program is called Crossover. http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/ Check it out. This is a product that you have to pay for, but with paying for it comes support and updates.

I hope that this helps.

Cheers!
 
In addition to ubuntu tutorials and general Linux forums the EasyBCD tool has it's own method as well as a few boot loaders to work with included in the free program there. The guide for seeing a dual boot with Vista can be looked over at http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

Just follow the guide there and make sure not to see the Grub loader installed if installing from a live release. The live 7.10 will ready install Grub on the same drive where the root and swap(optional) are located and readily add XP in but not Vista.

I've been working with the free tool there since right after Vista's retail release last year and it's easy to work with. I thought I would mention there are screenshots as well seen there.
 
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