twild
November 4th, 2011, 01:29 AM
I'm a new Ubuntu user, trying to use Ubuntu to give my Mum a more reliable computer to do basics like email, internet, and watching movies. For now I want it to dual boot, until she's convinced Ubuntu will do the job. I have some unix experience with Centos, Solaris, but no experience installing it. I'm comfortable in a bash shell though.
Mum has an old Acer Aspire 5315 (http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/notebook/0000/Acer/Aspire5315/Aspire5315sp2.shtml) laptop, 1GB RAM and a slow celeron processor, a few years old now. Vista isn't very reliable on it... and it's Vista. The machine has three existing partitions, a windows recovery partition, C drive for OS, D drive for data. I shrunk the D drive to make space for Ubuntu, using the Ubuntu installer.
I downloaded the generic 32bit x86 version of Ubuntu 11.10, and ran it fine as a live CD, so I figured i'd install it. The install went fine, and it said it finished, but it was still doing something, some kind of finalisation. Before it had finally said "yes i'm done" the computer shut off. When I run the installer again using the CD it thinks Ubuntu is installed, but there's no boot menu letting me choose between Windows and Ubuntu.
So two questions:
1) How do I check if it's installed properly?
2) If it is, how do I create a boot menu so Mum can choose between Windows and Ubuntu?
Any help would be appreciated :-)
As a footnote, I initially used the 64 bit version, and the install file had AMD64 on it. That ran fine as a live CD, but the install failed half way through, turning the machine off.
Mum has an old Acer Aspire 5315 (http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/notebook/0000/Acer/Aspire5315/Aspire5315sp2.shtml) laptop, 1GB RAM and a slow celeron processor, a few years old now. Vista isn't very reliable on it... and it's Vista. The machine has three existing partitions, a windows recovery partition, C drive for OS, D drive for data. I shrunk the D drive to make space for Ubuntu, using the Ubuntu installer.
I downloaded the generic 32bit x86 version of Ubuntu 11.10, and ran it fine as a live CD, so I figured i'd install it. The install went fine, and it said it finished, but it was still doing something, some kind of finalisation. Before it had finally said "yes i'm done" the computer shut off. When I run the installer again using the CD it thinks Ubuntu is installed, but there's no boot menu letting me choose between Windows and Ubuntu.
So two questions:
1) How do I check if it's installed properly?
2) If it is, how do I create a boot menu so Mum can choose between Windows and Ubuntu?
Any help would be appreciated :-)
As a footnote, I initially used the 64 bit version, and the install file had AMD64 on it. That ran fine as a live CD, but the install failed half way through, turning the machine off.