The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

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Just skimming the surface

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[*scyllabub*]

Straight into Windows XP 😞 (Morning, Grumps 🙂 )

[*scyllabub*]

PS - I've got "Ubuntu Netbook" in Add/Remove Programs ?:|

[grumpy-cook]

It's clearly not installed properly then. I know that with Ubuntu there is an option to install within Windows, but I think you should get a boot menu. OE may know more.

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[*scyllabub*]

C:\Ubuntu\Disks\Boot\Grub = EMPTY!>p>I'll uninstall it with Revo, that's worked very well for some other awkward progs I've had.

I'm in a reckless mood thru boredom, I think :(

[*scyllabub*]

I seem to have uninstalled it successfully, the only thing that Revo found left over was Wubi, lots of noughts somewhere.

I wonder if, whilst I was asleep, Ubuntu came up against my firewall and I wasn't there to OK something... because I had to OK something whilst uninstalling. I'll wait for OE or EJ to advise before I try again.

[*scyllabub*]

I'm now @speaking@ to you via the American keyboard on Ubuntu Netbook :^O I shall have to investigate the settings, but you can see that I've got the wifi working and there's nothing wrong with the cheapo USB stick I'm using 🙂

I haven't done anything to the stick since the failed installation, it took a while but when I booted I allowed Default to take its time and here I am.

Am going to wait for advice as to whether to try another install-within-Windows.

[otherego]

We definitely need ej here!

I've not tried installing Linux within Windows (other than limited success with VMWare - must try that again - I forget the details.)

Have you had a look at any on-line tutorials, Scylla? There's a slightly dated one here:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/wubi.html

Although there may have been a few changes, it looks as if at least a couple of reboots take place for the installation to complete. These probably need to be monitored, as they involve boot choices.

I'm also wondering whether it would help to choose to install to drive C, in case your E drive has been written as an unbootable partition - really not sure whether this would affect Wubi or not, but worth a thought, perhaps.

I'm chuffed that you've got the USB live install working - great way of trying things out. You've probably figured it by now, anyway, but if you look along the top of the desktop, go System > Preferences > Keyboard - self explanatory from there.

And wireless connection is definitely one of the things I like about Ubuntu/Mint - usually just works.

Although I was tempted to give Wubi a try, it dawned on me that it could just bork this installation (Windows 2000 on one drive, with Ubuntu 9.04 and Mint7 on a larger drive - I'm still not sure how the heck I eventually got them all booting reliably). As a result, I'm having a try on a W2K installed within Mint (using VirtualBox) on an even lower spec machine - which only has 3/4 gig of RAM. Really not sure whether the whole thing will run will 384mb of this allocated to VirtualBox - but that's the minimum requirement given in the Wubi site.

And I've not figured out how to make my VBox installation see USBs, so I'm having to let Wubi download the Ubuntu iso. It's taking forever. I'll let you know if it works - need to go out now, but hopefully, I'll have a bash this evening.

Perhaps g-c and ej would comment on running Linux within windows or vice-versa. I'm not sure which is the best way round - but running one in a virtual machine at least allows you to run both Windows and Linux simultaneously.

[grumpy-cook]

As I remember OE, Ubuntu has it's own proprietary installer where one of the options is to install within windows. The user doesn't really need to know anything about Wubi because Ubuntu does it all for you. I tried it once a couple of years ago, but uninstalled it quickly.

Virtualbox OSE doesn't have USB support built in to it - you need PUEL for that. However, you can access USB drives on OSE through the Virtualbox shared folders.

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[otherego]

I need to find an eBay bargain (surprisingly rare things) of a decent PC, and give VBox a proper chance.

Just tried to install Wubi/Ubuntu Netbook Remix on a VBox installation of W2000. It seemed to install OK, but flatly refused to boot - not even a black screen with a flashing cursor, but a black screen with a very static cursor.

Credit where it's due, it seemed to uninstall nicely.

A couple of interesting things, I thought. The first is that it seems to use the Windows bootloader rather than GRUB. I've never tried this in a dual boot - wonder whether it has any advantages?

It took longer to install than it would have taken me to shrink the Windows partition, prepare suitable Linux partitions and install Linux in a genuine dual-boot. This might, of course, have been a VBox thing. And it's not a powerful computer.

But I'd be interested to hear what folk have to say about Wubi. A shame I don't have a suitable machine to try it out on - so far, I can't say I'm all that impressed - but it has a good reputation, so I suspect "finger-trouble" on my part rather than any major deficiency in Wubi.

[ej-solutions]

I was quite impressed with Wubi when it first appeared and can be an easy way to try out Linux for the die-hard Windows user. Impressively quick given the constraints of working on top of a non-native filesystem.
Long-term, much better to have dual boot.
For convenience, I prefer the virtualBox route.

Removing Wubi:
Add/delete programs
All it does is store a big file (for the filesystem).
Add grub to a directory.
Add entries to boot.ini

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[*scyllabub*]

#748 - OE and #749 - EJ: The first time I tried to install Ubuntu within Windows (when I fell asleep) I noticed that it reported my C:\ drive having 20+gb free, and it selected 12gb to use for the installation. I thought that was a bit much so reduced it (there's drop-down box where different gb can be selected) to 10gb. As already documented, the installation went wrong.

Messing around overnight I found I could no longer boot into Ubuntu, so I opened the USB stick in Windows Explorer and set the install running with Wubi.exe. After nearly 2 hours of "extracting files" I started getting warning boxes "Drive C:\ is running low on space" 😞 I wonder if this is what happened last time while I was asleep. So I exited and removed all Ubuntu files with Revo.

I can't understand why I can no longer boot from Ubuntu-on-the-stick so I can run it from that ?:|

[otherego]

I've only used Revo a few times (great for dealing with corrupt Firefox installations) - is there any possibility that it might have "helpfully" removed all the Ubuntu files from the USB stick, too?

I'm trying to get a W2K laptop working so that I can mess around with Wubi. As it's been running Mint, I've reinstalled Windows 2000 from the restore discs. So far, installing IE6 and SP4 have taken longer than it took me to install Mint 8 and its updates. And it will then want to install umpteen more updates with several restarts. And being Windoze, will need an AV. And a firewall*Sigh*

The plan then is to install Wubi, copy the Ubuntu iso to the hard drive and point Wubi at it, and see what happens - I'll let you know if that works.

I may be some time...

[otherego]

Definitely one of those days where computers are concerned. Time for a little walk and a couple of beers, I think. But first - Scylla, if you've had any joy with Wubi, it'd be interesting to hear how you made it work.

I copied an iso of UNR to the laptop's hard drive, installed Wubi and told it to install UNR. (I disconnected the wireless connection to avoid it spending hours on the internet again.) I also shrank its space from the default 12gb to 5gb.

Things didn't go too badly - much along the lines of the Dedoimedo tutorial, in fact - until we got to the stage where after a couple of reboots it actually tried to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

This took three tries, using different boot options ("ACPI Workarounds" seemed to do the trick - it is old-fashioned hardware, which may have confused things a little.

I got to a stage where I could launch UNR and sign in. Every time I tried to launch any app, though, it started to open then minimised to the taskbar after a second or so. A couple of reboots didn't help, and un-minimising simply opened the app for a second before it scuttled coyly back to the task bar.

I couldn't even get the shut-down menu open and visible long enough to shut down, and had to keep using the power switch.

There were no complaints about insufficient space during the installation and in any event, it looks as if it should be installable to a 4gb netbook drive.

To add insult to injury I could, in the time it took for Wubi to install UNR, have easily manually repartitioned the hard drive and installed Linux in a conventional dual-boot - not sure whether 10.04 is a slow installer, perhaps, but that seems unlikely.

So right at the moment I see very little point to Wubi. Grrrr... But lots of people find it great. Perhaps it doesn't like Windows 2000. Or the Thinkpad's 1.13ghz CPU (but it has 512mb RAM). Or VBox's 384mb RAM (but that did have a 2.4ghz CPU)

But simply dual-booting Linux and Windows conventionally really ain't that hard, and things seem to work so much better...

Time for walkies, then a hefty dose of LIB (Linux-Induced-Beer.) Scylla - hope you're making more headway than me today...

[*scyllabub*]

I envy you, OE, being able to remember what you've done 😐

I don't think Revo has messed around with my stick, it uses the program's own uninstaller and then does a scan and reveals all the hidden-away traces in their trees/branches/twigs, so you would see anything in E:\ (which in my case is the stick).

Last time I tried to boot Ubuntu I got the "ubuntu" logo with dots underneath it for about half an hour; "Esc" brought up dossy white text in the top left saying something about a wrong or missing password. I did put a password in when asked in an earlier attempt.

Wubi does take AGES to install the OS. I've been waiting for someone (you 😉 ) to tell me how small I can make the installation folder - 12gb seemed ridiculous but 10gb hit problems, probably unrelated to size of folder ?:|

I will have another go later via Windows Explorer\E:\Wubi.exe, rather than waiting for boot.

[otherego]

...to remember what you've done

OK, true confessions time.

I keep a supply of cheap notebooks and scribble while I work. (Creeps away in anoracky embarrassment.)

As far as I can see, my problems with Wubi were unrelated to the size of the installation folder - which I reduced to 5gb. A little googling suggested that it can be installed to a 4gb netbook hard drive, after all.

But I just haven't made friends with Wubi. Could be it doesn't really like Windows 2000, perhaps.

I may have a go at installing NBR to this computer - it's only a 27GiB hard drive, and W2000 is already taking up nearly 6 of that - might be interesting to see what the automatic partitioner does.

[*scyllabub*]

I've given up on this UNetbootin install and, just because it's there, I'm trying PenDrive. It won't boot so I'm trying to install it from Wubi. The farther advanced the file extraction and installation, the farther away completion is predicted ?:| That's the same with all installs I've tried.

This time, my space on C:\ was said to be 24gb and the install size was selected @ 14gb 😮 I changed it to 8gb and am hoping for the best. It's be going for three-quarters of an hour and says it has 1hr 9m to go :|

[*scyllabub*]

The above post is missing "en" on the end of "be" :)

[grumpy-cook]

I thought it was your West Country roots showing Scylla. :^O

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[*scyllabub*]

Ooh, you outed me, Grumps 😮 :^O

The latest = after the best part of 2 hours, Windows tells me that C:\ is low on space and I should "click this" to free some up...

Installation therefore aborted, Revo utilised, all's well with Windows XP.

The area that's specified as being low on space is, I think, in Docs & Settings, Temp Files - would that make sense? I'm going to try the forums again but it's so "busy" there (as in, lots of info that's incomprehensible to me) :(

[otherego]

That netbook is certainly making you work for your progress, Scylla!

Does Windoze need quite a lot of the hard drive left empty? I seem to remember reading somewhere that it struggles once less than 15% of the drive is empty - and I know it needs at least that in order to defragment.

So - if you've got a 74.4 GiB drive (as in 80 giga-marketing-bytes), then at least 11.2 GiB needs to be left free after any new installation.

If your drive's been partitioned into say, C: and a data partition, might it help to increase the size of C's partition? I've never used a data partition in Windows, so have no idea how difficult this would be.

If you decide to go for a full Linux installation, dual-booting with Windows, you'll probably find Linux more accommodating about squeezing into a relatively small space.

Defragmentation is to all practical intents and purposes negligible. T

here is no system restore system (which typically defaults to using 12% of an XP drive and 15% of a Vista drive - I think.)

The size of the Linux swap partition is dictated by your hibernation requirements - if don't need hibernation and have at least a gig of RAM, you can actually get away with no swap at all if you really want to save space. If you need hibernation, then a swap partition a touch larger than your RAM will suffice.(Caveat - it's often recommended that one have a swap partition, so worth having if it can be fitted in. Since I did strange things to the partitions on this computer, swap has to be manually enabled for Mint - and I never.ever remember to do so, nor to do anything about making it fire up with every start. No problems so far.)

Hard to say exactly how much space you do need for your chosen Linux distro. Like any operating system, more is better - and it is useful to be able to create a reasonably substantial root partition and separate home partition, but not essential or necessarily practical where space is at a premium. I've got Mandriva 2009 running quite happily on about 9.5 GiB (including a small swap partition) on a T22.

Might just be time to take a deep breath and actually go ahead and install Linux in a conventional dual-boot... whilst this is not without some modest risk, it's probably easier than Linux-within_windoze, Linux-on-a-stick and so on, safe and fun though those may be.

Careful advance planning where partitioning is concerned greatly reduces any risk - and it's a simple matter to back up all your existing stuff first, just in case - ideally using something like Macrium (clearly described in g-c's "Me" page) to image your Windows installation to an external drive, rather than just saving data files.