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View Full Version : [ubuntu] first timer trying to install Ubuntu for dual boot

punkinold
August 4th, 2008, 09:59 PM
I am an absolute beginner with anything outside of windows and standard trouble shooting. I decided it would be interesting to look at and learn some Linux since I just bought a new machine for the family and upgraded my old machine, the one I wish to dual boot with. HP Pavillion 752n 60GB HD, 1GB ram.

I cannot get past the partiton screen. Each time it gives me a "to small" error. I have over 20GB of space available. What should I be doing, I tried everything including manual partition.

I would love to learn more. HELP!!
cdtech
August 4th, 2008, 10:04 PM
Have a look at this thread:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing
Paqman
August 4th, 2008, 10:21 PM
I cannot get past the partiton screen. Each time it gives me a "to small" error. I have over 20GB of space available. What should I be doing, I tried everything including manual partition.


When does this error pop up? When you try to resize the NTFS partition? How much free space does the NTFS partition have? Have you defragged it?
dhughes
August 4th, 2008, 10:25 PM
And is it XP or Vista? I've read a recent update made Vista/Ubuntu dual booting a bit tricky.
punkinold
August 4th, 2008, 11:19 PM
It's XP. I rebooted again and it started to partition then errored. In frustration I forgot to write down the message. I am done for the night and will try again tomorrow. Any suggestions will be welcomed, plus more information on the error tomorrow!

Thanks
dhughes
August 5th, 2008, 12:58 AM
I'm not sure what the trouble is, 'too small'? Maybe you're trying to install to the swap partition :confused: but I don't know if that was tried if an install would even try to do such a thing. Maybe you made the Swap partition too small, but I don't know if you would see an error message if you did that.

Maybe you could try partitioning using the LiveCD and the Gparted partitioning application before the actual Ubuntu install (avoiding the partitioning part of the install...maybe you got confused there) and then just select the partition when going through the install process again, probably sda2. Make a Linux Swap of 2GB and the rest, 18GB, is ext3, then try to install Ubuntu.