Do you always put two installations of Ubuntu on the same machine?

[susanne260]

When installing Ubuntu, do you guys always install it twice (in case one installation stops working) on the same computer? So you can continue to use the other installation without spending the time reinstalling and configuring the OS.

Or do you take the risk and just have one Ubuntu installation per a computer?

[cmay]

i have one ubuntu on one harddrive on one computer. i have more than one computer so if in case a computer goes down i just turn on one of the others. i can get nice computers from repair what others just trash so i have five computers. but the answer to your question in my case is i have only one ubuntu install .

[doorknob60]

An Arch and a Windows is good enough for me. If something somehow fails on Arch, Windows will usually still be working, since I haven't used it enough for it to get any viruses yet, and if something happens with Windows, well Arch is there and working fine as usual :-)

[eternalnewbee]

Or do you take the risk and just have one Ubuntu installation per a computer?
Yes! What would life be without taking risks? :lol:

[toupeiro]

hmm.. I dont really see the value of putting two installations of ubuntu on the same system. If I want KDE or Gnome, and my default is whatever I don't have, then I will just install the window manager.. I'll put beta's in a VM until I feel its stable enough to upgrade my production system. a dual linux dual boot? I guess I just dont have a need.

[chucky chuckaluck]

never even thought of it. it seems a bit like keeping a coat hanger in your trunk just in case you lock your keys in your car.

[susanne260]

Thanks for the replies. =)

[Aearenda]

I have two - usually one for the current version, and one for the alpha/beta of the next. I've never had the 'current' one stop working.

[Circus-Killer]

nope. only run a single installation on my laptop which is what i use 100% of the time for private use, and about 60% of the time at work (also have a work pc).

despite how much i depend on my laptop, i dont feel the need to have a second installation. i've never really had an installation go bad on me unless i'm trying something i know probably wont work. when i do those sort of things i just backup my data. once you have data backups, recovering using a fresh install doesnt take me more than an hour, three hours if you include downloading and installing extra packages.

[eternalnewbee]

Ah okay. Then I guess you guys are rather lucky not having your Ubuntu installations (which you have used for months without almost any problems) suddenly crashing completely out of the blue and stop working properly for no reason. =\
Been there, but it turned out to be a hardware problem! Check it out:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=989553

[Lod]

I've my personal data on a separe (lvm) partition. If ubuntu crashes I just reinstall it. I've some personal installation scripts which reinstalls all the software I want and put backs settings files if needed.
Usually I have my machine back in business within half an hour.

[fatality_uk]

Nicely reeled in :lol:

[kostkon]

No. I don't feel there is a risk. I have the same system from April 2007, upgraded from 7.04 to 8.04 (i.e. 7.04 → 7.10 → 8.04). It's pretty stable for me.

I think a good backup solution is sufficient.

[xpod]

Not now-a-days.
For the first year or so i did although not for the reasons mentioned in the OP.We have numerous machines too so any problems aren`t the calamity they might be with only the one machine/installation.The reality is we`ve never had any real issues on any machine that *buntu is installed on.
Ignorance yes,issues no!
At the time though i`d have the current version installed on one drive & the upcoming release installed on the other.That was my "dualboot":)
Usually a month or so before the full release was due i`d start the process again.Then when i bought the 64bit processor i had the 32bit & 64bit on the separate drives for a while.
Now i just have the 64bit version.There is an Arch install on my 2nd drive but i`ve not had two *buntus for quite some time.Not counting VM`s.

[steveneddy]

never even thought of it. it seems a bit like keeping a coat hanger in your trunk just in case you lock your keys in your car.

I locked my keys in the car last week.

I was really ******* me off because before the guy showed up to open the car it started to rain and I had the top down.

I only have one installation of Ubuntu on my laptop, one on my server and one on my daughter's PC.

Ubuntu is stable enough that we know it won't go down on us. Now when I first started using Ubuntu and tweaking everything all the time, that was a different story.

[Bölvaður]

I have 2 installations.
1. ubuntu 8.04
2. ubuntu 8.10

I was just checking if 8.10 would be much different which it turned out it wasnt. But it was good enough for me to begin to use 8.10 only and Im currently going to install fedora 10 over 8.04 :)
I have no experience with RPM systems yet :-/

[Toadmund]

I have three versions and one XP partition.

What I do is move my important data out of one of my outdated partitions then delete it and install the new one, then transfer back my files.

XP could be next, they want too much personal info to get it up again, and it's cleaned out, and I don't use it, so I may have room for 4 Ubuntu's.
But why do I cling to XP? Because I paid for it? Because I may need it some day, no that's not it.
It's going.

I have also found it convenient to have other partitions of Ubuntu when I had resolution problems in Gutsy, whereas I could not see through the garbled screen, black screen, whatever, I'd just go to a working version to solve the problem. Anyway, I don't have resolution problems anymore with Hardy, but it was good to have extra Ubuntu's at the time.

One other thing, all my eggs (data) are in different baskets, not neccesarily a bad thing.