Installing multiple OSs

[anewguy]

And now back to the thread at hand and the original poster, marenkar:

You should avoid wubi for anything other than a simple test drive. It wasn't meant for more than that. That's what dual-booting, VM's, etc., are for.

As far as grub goes, and multiple OS's, each time you tried to install another OS did you get an updated grub menu? You should be able to create separate partitions for each OS and as long as update-grub was run you should see them all. Just remember partition limits and go for logical (extended) partitions for everything after your 1 partition for Windows and a partition for some Linux install.

Dave

[marenkar]

Thanks!

I didn't see any GRUB menu when I installed Ubuntu 11.10 or Xubuntu (whether it was the first Linux OS or second, it didn't come up). I just repartitioned again and I realized that I may have messed up on the mount part when I selected to manually partition stuff myself. What am I supposed to enter on there? I entered "/" last time. I also selected ext4. While I have installed ubuntu numerous times in the past, this is the first time I'm doing multi os and manual partitions.


Edit: 11.10's partitioning seems quite different from 11.04 (your installation guide that I checked). I remember seeing that bubble where it states that it will let you choose upon booting up, it doesn't seem to be there on 11.10.

[HalfEmptyHero]

Sweet! Awesome, I'll do that right as I get this other problem cleared up.

Hmm, I thought GRUB was supposed to install itself automatically with the installation of Ubuntu 11.10? If not, how am I supposed to do it? I've installed 6.06 and 10.04 so this is my first non-LTS release. I haven't really had to install GRUB... well at least I don't remember it.

Yes, it should. But sometimes things mess up during an install, so who knows. Did you try holding down the shift key after your bios screen goes away?

[HalfEmptyHero]

Thanks!

I didn't see any GRUB menu when I installed Ubuntu 11.10 or Xubuntu (whether it was the first Linux OS or second, it didn't come up). I just repartitioned again and I realized that I may have messed up on the mount part when I selected to manually partition stuff myself. What am I supposed to enter on there? I entered "/" last time. I also selected ext4. While I have installed ubuntu numerous times in the past, this is the first time I'm doing multi os and manual partitions.


Edit: 11.10's partitioning seems quite different from 11.04 (your installation guide that I checked). I remember seeing that bubble where it states that it will let you choose upon booting up, it doesn't seem to be there on 11.10.

Yes, putting a "/" partition is required, and ext4 is a good choice for it. / is your root partition, where your system is installed to, so without it you have nothing.

The installer is different, but there should still be a section where it says "Manual set up drives" or something similar to that. I can't remember exactly where it is, but I'm going to download the ISO for it now to poke around on it.

[marenkar]

Yes, putting a "/" partition is required, and ext4 is a good choice for it. / is your root partition, where your system is installed to, so without it you have nothing.

The installer is different, but there should still be a section where it says "Manual set up drives" or something similar to that. I can't remember exactly where it is, but I'm going to download the ISO for it now to poke around on it.

Thanks! I'll give it another shot. Please let me know what you find and I appreciate you taking the time to help me.

Update: Wiped my hard drive clean and started from scratch. Installed Windows (160 GB) then I installed Ubuntu 11.10 regularly (selecting the most basic option of having it run alongside Windows). It still goes straight to windows right after booting.

[anewguy]

Thanks! I'll give it another shot. Please let me know what you find and I appreciate you taking the time to help me.

Update: Wiped my hard drive clean and started from scratch. Installed Windows (160 GB) then I installed Ubuntu 11.10 regularly (selecting the most basic option of having it run alongside Windows). It still goes straight to windows right after booting.

Are you saying a wubi install or a true dual-boot install?

[marenkar]

Are you saying a wubi install or a true dual-boot install?

I did a true dual-boot install.

I got it to work now, but I didn't solve the problem per se.

I removed Ubuntu 11.10 and installed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. After installing, I just updated it to 11.10. I think my 11.10 installation disc was just somewhat corrupted in the bootloader component. It looks fine now and I'm running the magnificent 11.10!

It's not over yet though, I'm still going to install Fedora. But not after getting GNOME and Xfce.