How to set up XP / Xubuntu dual boot?

[Blank000]

Hello everyone!
Here i am, wanting to try out Linux and getting stuck at - installing it.

Since my first try was a disaster of epic proportions (selected 80GB partition with data as swap), i should prepare a little better second time around.
But, the more i google the more confused i am.

So, XP is installed, partitions on disk are prepared as follows:
1. XP installed on it
2. for Xubuntu
3. for swap
4. for data

Besides XP all others are completely clean. Several things are unclear.
When installing i select "something else", that gives me the option to select partitions, but under "use as" there are several options. I know to select "swap" for swap, but what to select for Xubuntu (ext2, ext3, extxy...)?

Then, there is some talk of "home" partition? But there is also some about how one shouldn't have more then four partitions on disk?

Finaly, getting to actuall dual boot. I've found this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

It speaks of GRUB, MBR, and how some changes to it will be necessary, but not a word about how, where and what am i supposed to change.

GRUB2 is the boot manager installed in Ubuntu... This means Ubuntu is independent and avoids any need for writing to other operating systems. To accomplish this, the only thing in your computer outside of Ubuntu that needs to be changed is a small code in the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the first hard disk. The MBR code is changed to point to the boot loader in Ubuntu.

Enough with the question. For now :)
Can someone in plain language (don't go primary, secondary, extended, logical on me :) ) explain what do i do, to get this thing installed.

Thanks in advance!

[zvacet]

(don't go primary, secondary, extended, logical on me

But that can be handy,because if you make extended partition then inside you can create more then just 4 partitions.You can have may 4 primary partitions,but if you have extended one things changed.But if you don´t want to make extended partition then as you partitioned your HD I will make this(I don´t know how much space do you have)

1. root=10-15GB mountpoint /
2. swap=~2GB
3. home= rest of fre space mountpoint /home

At home partition will be your settings and files ( data if you want),so in case something goes wrong your settings will be safe.That is why is good to have separate home partition.Format partitions as ext4.If you have any more questions,just ask.

[dzponce11]

Try using wubi, which can be found at the ubuntu website.

[al111]

Better installing to its' own partition than in wubi-

Just my opinion-

[oldfred]

aysiu's example with screenshots is straight forward. It would be essentially the same process for different versions of Ubuntu.

Install with separate /home from aysiu
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installseparatehome

For those who want lots of detail and explanation, but also with screenshots:
Installs with good screenshots/examples:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p22.html

[mastablasta]

So, XP is installed, partitions on disk are prepared as follows:
1. XP installed on it
2. for Xubuntu
3. for swap
4. for data


Is "4. data " going to be shared with windows? because then this partition shouldnt' be /home.


Besides XP all others are completely clean. Several things are unclear.
When installing i select "something else", that gives me the option to select partitions, but under "use as" there are several options. I know to select "swap" for swap, but what to select for Xubuntu (ext2, ext3, extxy...)?

Whatever you like. but it's best to use default ext4 file system if you don't know the difference.


Then, there is some talk of "home" partition? But there is also some about how one shouldn't have more then four partitions on disk?

howm is where all data and settigns are stored. it can be a directory/folder or separate partition. on desktop it works kind fo like My Documents in windows or maybe more like the user's folder.


Finaly, getting to actuall dual boot. I've found this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

It speaks of GRUB, MBR, and how some changes to it will be necessary, but not a word about how, where and what am i supposed to change.

No worries, they are done automaticly for you. widnows MBR is replaced by GRUB, which will can handle the booting of a number of operating systems (such as Windows, linux, MacOS, i think also BSD...). you will then get a choice into which system you want to boot. it can also be customized a bit (background image, text colour etc.)

also note that creating additional linux partitions is actually not necessary. installer will do it for you. all you need to do is have empty disk space (i.e. unformated space).

[Blank000]

Thanks guys, you're great! :)

Here i am, posting from Xubuntu and Midori browser ;)

I played with it for the last two hours, and i really like it. But, to my great disappointment, on this old computer i'm trying to bring back to life (Pentium IV 1.8, 512 RAM) it's actually slower then XP (GIMP is literally useless, vs. XP where it runs normally, Opera installation was a 20+minutes wait...), and once it goes to swap things get even worse.
I'll keep it for now, but it doesn't looks promising. Guess i'll be looking for "how to remove dual boot" real soon :D

[mastablasta]

what graphics card do you have? (you can type
lspci in terminal to give you a list which you can copy and post here). Xubutnu shoudld eb much faster on such maschine than windowsXP. but if card is poorly supported then it could be slower. i am using a Chrunchbang XFCE on 256MB (32 MB taken by GPU), 1,2 Ghz computer. windows took between 8 and 10 minutes only to boot the OS. this debain verison with XFCE takes about 30 seconds. it seems card is well supported though.

try putting in


top command to see what consumes the ram and CPU. maybe a setting is wrong.

additionally you can try


free -m

command to see memorry usage. post it here as well.

[Blank000]

what graphics card do you have? (you can type
lspci in terminal to give you a list which you can copy and post here).

Here they are:

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82845 845 [Brookdale] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 12)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801BA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 12)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801BA IDE U100 Controller (rev 12)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 12)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM SMBus Controller (rev 12)
00:1f.4 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801BA/BAM USB Controller #1 (rev 12)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]
02:02.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev 43)
02:03.0 Communication controller: Ambient Technologies Inc HaM controllerless modem (rev 02)
02:06.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: C-Media Electronics Inc CM8738 (rev 10)


top:

top - 14:15:18 up 6 min, 0 users, load average: 0.10, 0.42, 0.28
Tasks: 110 total, 2 running, 107 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
Cpu(s): 14.8%us, 3.6%sy, 0.0%ni, 81.6%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 508324k total, 436532k used, 71792k free, 45568k buffers
Swap: 524284k total, 0k used, 524284k free, 207372k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1082 root 20 0 39384 18m 7864 R 8.9 3.8 0:57.06 Xorg
1472 dario 20 0 331m 66m 27m S 5.0 13.4 0:46.59 midori
1684 dario 20 0 158m 13m 10m S 3.6 2.8 0:03.88 xfce4-terminal
1231 dario 20 0 23868 11m 8380 S 1.3 2.2 0:03.44 xfwm4
1742 dario 20 0 2820 1120 848 R 0.7 0.2 0:00.17 top
4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:01.10 kworker/0:0
1 root 20 0 3316 1784 1216 S 0.0 0.4 0:01.40 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.18 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.70 kworker/u:0
6 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
7 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 cpuset
8 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
9 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 netns
10 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 sync_supers
11 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 bdi-default
12 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kintegrityd
13 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kblockd
14 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_sff
15 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
16 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 md
17 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.25 kworker/u:1
18 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.21 kworker/0:1
19 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khungtaskd
20 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kswapd0
21 root 25 5 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 ksmd
22 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 fsnotify_mark

free -m

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496 426 70 0 44 202
-/+ buffers/cache: 179 317
Swap: 511 0 511


I did what this page recommends
http://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/first, but when i start "Additional drivers" nothing is found.
Here is a Synaptic Package Manager screenshot:
http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8004/screenshot0421201202363.png



windows took between 8 and 10 minutes only to boot the OS. this debain verison with XFCE takes about 30 seconds.

Forgot to even mention that, boot time is also longer for Xubuntu then XP. Opening programs, new tabs in Midori, even File manager takes longer than it should. It's just generally slow.

[zvacet]

If you didn´t get any better suggestion then try to switch to Lubuntu.It is easy thing to do and as far I know LXDE is lightest DE.Read this (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purelxde) under Remove Xubuntu.

[Blank000]

If you didn´t get any better suggestion then try to switch to Lubuntu.It is easy thing to do and as far I know LXDE is lightest DE.Read this (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purelxde) under Remove Xubuntu.

Considering everything mastablasta said, this looks like hardware support problem. If Xubuntu has problems, i guess Lubuntu will also have them. And it is less user friendly for a beginner.

[Blank000]

If you didn´t get any better suggestion then try to switch to Lubuntu.It is easy thing to do and as far I know LXDE is lightest DE.Read this (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purelxde) under Remove Xubuntu.

Unfortunately, Xubuntu in this state, on this computer is useless. So i'll have to give Lubuntu a try. Is it really so simple, just copy/paste into the terminal?

Is there anything i should know, prepare for, since it is a dual boot?

[zvacet]

Just copy/paste commands from given page and Xubuntu will be replaced with Lubuntu.Nothing to do with other partitions.You will just change desktop environment.