dual boot best practice

[dkruitz]

I've got a PC I've reloaded with XP Pro that I need for work at times, but I've used Ubuntu and want to make it my primary OS. So I tried the wubi.exe windows installer and installed ubuntu on an NTFS U: drive. I was surprised how it shows up in windows and wondered if this is some oddball file system, and are there any risks in having a dual boot using this version (on an NTFS partition), or should I boot off the CD and let it take empty space for more traditional linux partitions as needed? (I'm on a single 250GB sata drive, but am planing to add a 2nd IDE drive later - will this cause any issues re: /hda /sda ?)

Thanks for looking!
Dan

[steveneddy]

Why don't you simply run Ubuntu in a virtual machine like VirtualBox?

Seems easier to me than partitioning.

[kansasnoob]

My only real complaint with Wubi is explained here:

http://wubi-installer.org/faq.php#requirements



Any gotcha?

Hibernation is not supported under Wubi, moreover Wubi filesystem is more vulnerable to hard-reboots (turning off the power) and power outages than a normal filesystem, so try to avoid unplugging the power. An Ubuntu installation to a dedicated partition provides a filesystem that is more robust and can better tolerate such events.


And power outages are very common where I live!

I prefer a true dual boot something like this:

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_linux_xp_installed _first.htm

NOTE: The steps regarding grub in that tutorial do not apply to 9.10 (Karmic) and later as it now uses grub2!

[dkruitz]

It's already dual booting - just asking if having Ubuntu on an NTFS partition is a best practice, or is it better to boot off the Live CD and install it all linux partitions.

If I run virtual box, the virtualized system would be slower wouldn't it? Or is the performance pretty good running an XP pro VM inside Ubuntu?

[garvinrick4]

Here is a site with a graphical install to help you out.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall