Sorry, Fernando. I'm not meaning to confuse you. I've never seen a choice to
install Windows from an Ubuntu control panel that I can recall, except
perhaps as an option to the Qemu virtualizer.
Windows' bootloader installation routines do not check for the presence of
an existing, non-Windows bootloader. Nor does the Windows partitioner check
well for the existence of other partitions. So it has been my experience
that the safest way to install to dual boot a machine is to first install
Windows, and just let it partion the whole drive and install where and how
it wants. Afterward, install Ubuntu, which not only DOES check for Windows
(or other partitions) during install, but said install can be triggered from
within Windows simply by inserting the Ubuntu CD.
Ubuntu will check the drive during installation, and provide you with a
partitioning display. That display contains a slider that allows you to
adjust the Windows partition size and the Ubuntu partition size to whatever
you like. Once set, continuing the installation will install Ubuntu, and, in
current versions Ubuntu will warn you of the presence of the other
bootloader and tell you that it can safely install GRUB, the Ubuntu
bootloader, to manage both.
What has often happened to me when I have attempted to go the other way
'round: Linux first, then Windows, is that the Windows bootloader
over-writes a portion of GRUB, requiring one to play around with GRUB
editing and/or GRUB recovery disks in order to put back the portions of GRUB
that got clobbered.
As always, however, there are probably at least 42 possibilities for doing
things.This is the one I most often use in setting up lots of Windows
machines in my district's schools for dual boot, as it is least likely to
cause me extra work and aggravation. :-)
My preference, though, is to simply dump Windoze and run Linux, either
Ubuntu or Fedora. In which case I partition as follows:
root
swap (likely unnecessary if one has > 2GB RAM)
/home
Doing so provides some protection for the /home directory (where all user
files live) during updates/upgrades. Since Linux programs almost universally
respect the convention of saving user data and individual user settings to
the user's /home directory, one can actually completely replace the root
file structure during an update or upgrade and not touch /home at all, thus
replacing the operating system without affecting user data. (Nonetheless, I
still recommend backing up before trying this, mistakes DO happen, and all
it takes is a couple of wrong selections to clobber your files in /home.)
It's this capability which allows modern Linux distributions to do in-place,
over-the-network upgrades from one version to another. In fact, I'll likely
be doing my Fedora 11 to Fedora 12 upgrade on this very machine this way in
the very near future.
All this can be moot if one has a fast machine with lots of RAM and
sufficient disk available. In that case, install VMWare and virtualize both
operating systems. A 3GHz processor and 4-8GB RAM is more than sufficient to
the task of running two virtual machines that will be primarily single-user.
Run a full install of your preferred version of Windows in one, and of your
preferred version of Linux in the other. Both are fully operational, all the
time, and one can switch back and forth quite easily. And since they are
both running simultaneously, and are full virtual machines, you can do
"tricks" like transferring files between the two over the "network" even
though they're actually on the same physical hardware.
---
Scott Gomez
On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 9:48 AM, Fernando Gonzalez Gentile <
fgonzalezgentile@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ok, now I got really lost.
> Scott, that's why I was advised to install Ubuntu first, and let it
> boot the machine. Then, choose XP using an Ubuntu "control panel" if
> you're using some Adobe or anything.
>
> Fernando.
>
> On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Scott Gomez <sgomez.baja@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > dual-boot the machine. I
> > would however, recommend installing Windows first, vice Linux, as Windows
> > tends to try to control the boot sector of the drive, and often
> overwrites
> > the Linux bootloader.
> >
> > ---
> > Scott Gomez
> >
> --
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