profozone
September 20th, 2009, 09:01 PM
Ok, I apologize if this has been answered before. I'm certain it has from my searches, but I think I'm just too stupid to understand the answers. Here's the situation:
Hardware: 6 month old Dell Studio 15 laptop, 250GB HDD
Software: Vista 64 home premium.
I would like to install Ubuntu Ultimate Edition 2.3 on this computer as a dual boot. Following a guide I found, I went into Windows disk manager and shrank the drive with Vista on it, which created about 63 GB of space. Then I booted off of the CD, went to install and was presented with two options that looked possible (only one of those options was available in the guide I was following). The first option was to put Ubuntu on the computer alongside Vista and choose between the two at boot up. That sounded perfect. The other option was the one in the guide that said put it in the largest available space. Not knowing what to do, I figured that the first one was the best option and that the edition of Ubuntu was probably newer than the one in the guide. So far so good. . . I think.
The next stumbling block was when it asked if I wanted to unmount my drives. Even after reading the description, I wasn't sure if I did or not. But after thinking about it for a while (and searching without finding much help), I decided to unmount them. Mistake?
I continued on with the install. It looked to be going well until it said that some of the partitions were too small and that continuing might cause the install to fail and that the drives needed to be what looked like 6.5GB in size minimum (it was a seriously long number without any commas). Well that didn't sound good, so I figured I better check this out. It sent me to the partitioning portion of the install which definitely confused me more. First, there was some other partition in there that I didn't recognize and then it also seemed to be asking me to partition the drives, which I didn't think should be necessary because I cleared space before starting, which did show up as available during the install. Since the space was available, shouldn't it just install there? Why does it care that some unused drive is too small? Anyway, I thought, no big deal, I'll go back into windows and make them all at least 6.5G. I might be wasting space, but I though I could live with that.
Are you still with me? If you are, you certainly have a lot of patience.
So once in windows I saw the nature of the third drive. In total there were 3. The first and tiny one was for some IDE controller thingy (31MB). The second one was the OS. And the third one was a backup (~16Gb). When I selected the 31 MB drive to increase it's size, assuming I could even do that, it essentially gave me no options. I also noticed that the "shrinking" I had done before was un-done by Linux. So I re-shrunk it and tried again.
Hang in there, just a little more to go. I apologize.
So I decided to try again, but this time I would try the other option, to install in the largest available space. I got essentially the same result.
Then it occurred to me that maybe I should not have selected to unmount the drives. So I decided to go back in and select the other option and see if that helped. This time the install did not even give me the option and hasn't since then. After a few more tries, I decided that maybe the problem was that I only cleared the space but did not actually create a new partition. So I went back into Vista, shrank, created a "volume" and tried again. This time I first got an error that said I couldn't use that area until I rebooted (even though I already had before starting). I noticed that it had created a 2.5GB swap area for itself, though. When I clicked out of that it seemed to want to proceed, but gave me the same and by now frustrating story about having some partitions that were too ef'ing small.
So now that you have hung in here all the way to the end, I present you with the question.
It is: WTF?
I'm sorry that I don't understand why I'm partitioning at all in Ubuntu, what will be erased when I do, why this little partition bothers Ubuntu so much, how many "primary" drives I am allowed to have or why it matters to Ubuntu or why it asks me about resizing instead of something like, "Hey, I found a huge portion of your hard drive sitting there all empty and everything. How about I install Linux up in there for you without messing up your Vista at all? Would that be cool with you?"
Finally one other question. During my searches I saw something about using 3 partitions just for Ubuntu to make it easier to update the OS without losing settings. Can anyone explain in simple terms how I can load this fine operating system onto my Dell in a dual boot with Vista 64, without hosing up Vista, so that it primarily boots into Ubuntu and allows me to select Vista if I want to and to do so in a way that will make it easy to update? An additional question would be, and I know I'm being pretty demanding here, is to explain it as though I was a 10 year old? Ok, maybe a 12 year old?
Thank you so much for enduring this hideously long post and for any forthcoming help. I am anxious to break the chains that bind me to Microsoft and despite my inability to load on the OS I do believe I can live with Ubuntu, since I already use a lot of the programs I would be using if I switch (Mozilla, VLC, Open Office, etc.).
Ok, just give me a second to put on my flame proof suit and I'll be ready to return to this forum to see what little gems may await.
Hardware: 6 month old Dell Studio 15 laptop, 250GB HDD
Software: Vista 64 home premium.
I would like to install Ubuntu Ultimate Edition 2.3 on this computer as a dual boot. Following a guide I found, I went into Windows disk manager and shrank the drive with Vista on it, which created about 63 GB of space. Then I booted off of the CD, went to install and was presented with two options that looked possible (only one of those options was available in the guide I was following). The first option was to put Ubuntu on the computer alongside Vista and choose between the two at boot up. That sounded perfect. The other option was the one in the guide that said put it in the largest available space. Not knowing what to do, I figured that the first one was the best option and that the edition of Ubuntu was probably newer than the one in the guide. So far so good. . . I think.
The next stumbling block was when it asked if I wanted to unmount my drives. Even after reading the description, I wasn't sure if I did or not. But after thinking about it for a while (and searching without finding much help), I decided to unmount them. Mistake?
I continued on with the install. It looked to be going well until it said that some of the partitions were too small and that continuing might cause the install to fail and that the drives needed to be what looked like 6.5GB in size minimum (it was a seriously long number without any commas). Well that didn't sound good, so I figured I better check this out. It sent me to the partitioning portion of the install which definitely confused me more. First, there was some other partition in there that I didn't recognize and then it also seemed to be asking me to partition the drives, which I didn't think should be necessary because I cleared space before starting, which did show up as available during the install. Since the space was available, shouldn't it just install there? Why does it care that some unused drive is too small? Anyway, I thought, no big deal, I'll go back into windows and make them all at least 6.5G. I might be wasting space, but I though I could live with that.
Are you still with me? If you are, you certainly have a lot of patience.
So once in windows I saw the nature of the third drive. In total there were 3. The first and tiny one was for some IDE controller thingy (31MB). The second one was the OS. And the third one was a backup (~16Gb). When I selected the 31 MB drive to increase it's size, assuming I could even do that, it essentially gave me no options. I also noticed that the "shrinking" I had done before was un-done by Linux. So I re-shrunk it and tried again.
Hang in there, just a little more to go. I apologize.
So I decided to try again, but this time I would try the other option, to install in the largest available space. I got essentially the same result.
Then it occurred to me that maybe I should not have selected to unmount the drives. So I decided to go back in and select the other option and see if that helped. This time the install did not even give me the option and hasn't since then. After a few more tries, I decided that maybe the problem was that I only cleared the space but did not actually create a new partition. So I went back into Vista, shrank, created a "volume" and tried again. This time I first got an error that said I couldn't use that area until I rebooted (even though I already had before starting). I noticed that it had created a 2.5GB swap area for itself, though. When I clicked out of that it seemed to want to proceed, but gave me the same and by now frustrating story about having some partitions that were too ef'ing small.
So now that you have hung in here all the way to the end, I present you with the question.
It is: WTF?
I'm sorry that I don't understand why I'm partitioning at all in Ubuntu, what will be erased when I do, why this little partition bothers Ubuntu so much, how many "primary" drives I am allowed to have or why it matters to Ubuntu or why it asks me about resizing instead of something like, "Hey, I found a huge portion of your hard drive sitting there all empty and everything. How about I install Linux up in there for you without messing up your Vista at all? Would that be cool with you?"
Finally one other question. During my searches I saw something about using 3 partitions just for Ubuntu to make it easier to update the OS without losing settings. Can anyone explain in simple terms how I can load this fine operating system onto my Dell in a dual boot with Vista 64, without hosing up Vista, so that it primarily boots into Ubuntu and allows me to select Vista if I want to and to do so in a way that will make it easy to update? An additional question would be, and I know I'm being pretty demanding here, is to explain it as though I was a 10 year old? Ok, maybe a 12 year old?
Thank you so much for enduring this hideously long post and for any forthcoming help. I am anxious to break the chains that bind me to Microsoft and despite my inability to load on the OS I do believe I can live with Ubuntu, since I already use a lot of the programs I would be using if I switch (Mozilla, VLC, Open Office, etc.).
Ok, just give me a second to put on my flame proof suit and I'll be ready to return to this forum to see what little gems may await.