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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Considering Dual Booting w/ Win XP



jfinner1
March 2nd, 2009, 07:50 AM
I used to have Windows XP on this computer, but it crashed, and since so many of my friends had been asking me to try Linus, I decided to install Ubuntu instead of doing a system reboot back to XP. I was immediately impressed with Ubuntu when I was able to recover all of my files from XP, instead of having them all deleted like I thought they were. I've been using Ubuntu for about 6 months now, and I love it. However, there are a few programs and games that are Windows only, and even Wine can't do everything. So I'm considering dual booting my computer, and putting XP back on. I was wondering if anyone could tell me about any problems I might run into. How much hard drive space will I need, will my current amount of RAM (768 MB) be enough, will dual booting slow my computer down, things like that. Also, I found these instructions, and was wondering if they were the best to follow.
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_linux_and_windows_xp_linux_instal led_first.htm?page=1

Thanks in advance.

Trebaruna
March 2nd, 2009, 09:47 AM
Hard drive: depends on what you want. If you play lots of games, you may need more space than if you just use XP to browse the net. When I dual booted XP I used 10GB. The install takes up a lot less (especially if you use nLite), but games take up a lot, too. It's better to overestimate than to underestimate if you can at all miss the space.
RAM: If it ran XP before, there's no reason it shouldn't, now. 768MB isn't very luxurious, but it should run.
Dual boot speed: it's quite simple, really. You either load XP, or Ubuntu. When you're using the one, the other is not active at all. There is zero overhead involved.

After quickly skimming through the tutorial it looks like it will serve your needs.
Please realize that doing anything like this involves somewhat risky actions. Make sure you either don't care about, or have backups of the data on your machine. Everything should be fine, but better safe than sorry, right?

jfinner1
March 2nd, 2009, 01:30 PM
I have around a 55Gig hard drive. I do almost everything on Ubuntu, and would be using XP mostly for gaming. Some of the games I play that will be installed with XP are Zoo Tycoon 2 and all expantion packs (only 2 of the 4 work on Ubuntu), Age of Empires, Dogz 5, Baulder's Gate, and maybe Diablo 2. How much space would you suggest I put aside for this? Also, is there any way to change the partition size if I end up needing more space?