How to dual boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux 1. Ubuntu Linux Download. Burn Ubuntu Linux ISO image. Bios Settings to boot from CD-ROM. Remove existing partitions. Create a new partition. Manual disk preparation. Define a mount point for NTFS partition. Set mount point.
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Jul 10, 2007 Dual-booting XP and Linux - It's really easy! Hit ENTER and then type in your password hit ENTER again and you get access to the boot menu file in gedit. The default boot entry is defined by the default value. Change this value to reflect which OS you want to boot up automatically. The default value is. A Beginner's Guide to Dual Booting Linux Mint and Windows XP. Click on the remaining unallocated space and then click on the New button at the top left. Make sure this partition fills the entire unallocated space - the 'Free Space Preceding' and the 'Free Space Following' fields should both be 0 (zero). How to Dual-Boot Windows XP and Linux (Updated!) Step 1: Materials. Computer with Windows XP installed. Step 2: Prepare the Materials. Open up your ISO burning software and burn the Ubuntu ISO to a CD. Step 3: Installing Ubuntu. Ok, so we've burned the image to the CD and set up the BIOS. Jun 11, 2008 How to Dual Boot Linux and Windows XP. The good news is that you don't need a super-powered machine with massive RAM and hard-drive space to dual-boot Windows XP and Linux. The EeePC—ASUS's popular ultramobile PC (UMPC)—can do the job, particularly the new EeePC 900. Its 20GB hard drive lets both operating systems coexist without storage strains.
To start off, I am strictly a Windows user. I've used a Mac, and especially never used Linux before. However, I would like to learn more about Linux in general, and I figured the best way to do this is to dual boot Windows XP, but I've got a few questions.
Can you partition a hard drive which already has an operating system on it?I've got Windows XP installed on my harddrive, and my total harddrive usage is around 56GB (out of 465GB LOL). It is just set up as having one hard drive (the C: drive), am I able to partition this hard drive without losing my install of windows (and all my files?). I would then install Linux on the other partition.
What is the most user-friendly Linux Distro?I'd like to install a Linux Distro that would hopefully have most things already configured, and loaded with necessary programs and drivers such as a wireless internet driver.
How can I back up my entire hard drive?I'd like to back up my entire hard drive to some sort of external media (be it 20 DVD's or an external hard drive), so if something goes wrong, I can wipe the hard drive, copy the 'image' back onto it, and I'd have my installation of Windows (with all programs, settings + drivers already installed.) Is this possible?
Will my hardware work with Linux?For exmaple, I have a Wireless Network Adapter, and it has a Windows driver. Would it get automatically installed on Linux? How about my Microsoft Wireless Keyboard + Mouse?
Thanks. I really want to try Linux, but I'm a bit worried about completely destroying my hard drive. I've got some quite important information on there.
James
7 Answers
First off, you should take a look at Ubuntu with the WUBI installer. Now lets answer your sub-questions :).
Can you partition a hard drive which already has an operating system on it?
Yes, and most Linux distributions include tools that will do this for you easily, and without negatively impacting your Windows data right inside the installer. WUBI will install Ubuntu just like any other Windows program without impacting your partitions at all.
What is the most user-friendly Linux Distro?
Ubuntu is probably the most popular at this point, I recommend it strongly as it is built on a very solid base (Debian) and it was designed to be user-friendly.
How can I back up my entire hard drive?
I would get an external USB hard drive and copy data to that. Thank you for considering this before you start!
Will my hardware work with Linux?
Probably. Most common hardware is well supported, and improvements are made in this area every day. Ubuntu's wiki has a comprehensive guide on hardware compatibility.
Hardware compatibility is a hard problem on all Operating Systems, not just Linux. Linux just has a reputation for not having strong hardware support. This is a fault of the hardware manufacturers, not Linux.
jtimbermanjtimberman19k99 gold badges6262 silver badges7777 bronze badges
Yes, you can partition a hard drive that already has an OS on it. That is how you dual boot. I would recommend Ubuntu if you want some-thing user friendly. But then again, if you want to learn about coding more, get something that will require you to use the terminal and commands more. You can back up your entire hard drive. One option would be to create another partition using a free download-able service (find one at downloads.com) and copy all you files to the back-up partition. Another would be to back-up the files to a portable hard-drive. You won't need to partition your hard drive for Ubuntu, the installer will do it for you, making it much lesser stressful to do. Wubi is a good option if you just want to see what Ubuntu looks like without doing anything serious. Do some online research about partitions and what they are if you would like to feel more comfortable partitioning your drive, as you can lose data. Oh, and one last thing, when you install Ubuntu, it will be set as the main OS. Look up some GRUB info and find out how to set the default OS and work with the list of options for boot you will be given. Furthermore, remember that if you remove Ubuntu, make sure to remove GRUB, because otherwise you won't be able to boot.
The Green FrogThe Green Frog62911 gold badge1010 silver badges3333 bronze badges
I'd suggest the Wubi installer as jtimberman suggests... but let's address each of your questions.
Linux Windows 10 Dual Boot
Can you partition with an existing OS? Yes. and most modern Linux distros will do this for you during the install (Ubuntu's is very straight forward)
Backing up your hard drive? This should really be a separate question
Most user friendly Linux distro?Ubuntu really seems to have the edge here, but there have been leaps of progress in desktop Linux so you can do a little research at DistroWatch to see what fits you best. But I'd suggest Ubuntu. But it doesn't come with the standard MP3 and Flash stuff you'll be used to with windows.. a quick search will get you the VERY EASY solution to that.
Will my hardware work? Easiest way to find out without me making you list ALL of your important pieces with Manufacturer and Version is to just download the ISO for a liveCD (Just about all modern desktop Linux distros have one) and burn it to a disk. Make sure you're setup to boot from your CD/DVD drive and boot into it. This will give you a test run of the OS and show you what pieces of hardware you'll have problems with. If a piece doesn't seem to work don't fret! bring that piece to Google and SuperUser, you'll find your answer.
Have fun Linuxing!
codeLescodeLes1,30744 gold badges2020 silver badges3434 bronze badges
Have you considered running a distro of Linux in a VM? It's seems the easiest way of doing it, because it does not involve repartitioning, dual booting, losing data; you also get a sense of how the OS would work if it was really directly installed on a PC.
Another great thing is that you can work in both operating systems at the same time; it was very easy to just switch between XP and the OpenSuse that was running in the VM when doing development. Try VirtualBox; it's free and works quite well.
alexalex15.6k77 gold badges4949 silver badges7474 bronze badges
Will my hardware work with Linux?
Probably. It is always possible to have a whacky or less supported piece of hardware which does not have a driver supplied in your distribution, although this gets less and less likely with more popular, personal user oriented distributions such as Ubuntu. I still can't get CentOs to recognize my network card, which is a drag because it might be possible (and relatively easy) to find the driver online if I were already connected to the internet. But it isn't worth it for me, as Ubuntu recognizes it with no problem.
But seriously, you'd be surprised how interoperable things are these days. This isn't 1997 when all peripherals worked for PC or mac but not both.
David BergerDavid Berger
How can I back up my entire hard drive?
As far as backing up your hard drive specifically - I would strongly recommend you look into an imaging solution. That way you can go back to exactly how things were befure you started tinkering in the even that something goes wrong. There are many free options. I am rather partial to the open source (linux based) Clonezilla. There is also driveimageXML and countless others. An image will capture you computer exactly as it is, and allow you to restore it to the point later. More info on that here and a walk through here
Mike MMike M
People keep giving me their old machines that XP much less Vista just doesn't work very well on anymore and I put either Linux Mint, my fav right now or ubuntu on it (them) as I now have 3 so called outdated machines and Linux runs beautifully on them. No software to buy. I found a discarded printer at a garage sale and plugged it in and it works just fine after cleaing it up a bit and adding new ink.
What's not to like. Linux is different to people that have had MS shoved down their throats for so long, but as was said it's not 1997 anymore and the distros just get better and better and amazingly they work with no fears and hassles like you have with MS.
Lord Chumley
Learning has never been so easy!
How to dual-boot Windows XP and Linux. (Now updated for XP SP 3 and Ubuntu 8.04.).
5 Steps total
Step 1: Back up the GRUB boot menu
Regardless of which bootloader you end up using, it's a very good move to first back up the GRUB bootloader. It's easy to lose it and unless you know how to re-write it from scratch then you're generally facing a full reinstallation of Ubuntu.
Firstly, boot into Ubuntu and go to Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal. Then, type in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst.
This text file contains all the information GRUB uses to configure various boot options. Scroll down and the entries between '## ## End Default Options ##' and '### END DEBIAN AUTOMATIC KERNELS LIST' are the Linux boot options.
Make a backup of the file by going to File, Save As and selecting a different location. Or take a full copy of the contents and place it into a new text file. If you can, create the backup on a removable disk or networked location.
This text file contains all the information GRUB uses to configure various boot options. Scroll down and the entries between '## ## End Default Options ##' and '### END DEBIAN AUTOMATIC KERNELS LIST' are the Linux boot options.
Make a backup of the file by going to File, Save As and selecting a different location. Or take a full copy of the contents and place it into a new text file. If you can, create the backup on a removable disk or networked location.
Step 2: Make space for XP
Now we need to create space on the hard drive for XP, so this will involve resizing the main Ubuntu partition. Restart the system using the Ubuntu Live CD as this gives you access to GNOME Partition Editor. When the CD loads, select 'Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer'.
Once the CD loads, go to System, Administration, Partition Editor.
Right-click on the main data partition which has been formatted with ext3 - it should be /dev/sda1 - and select 'Resize/Move'
Move the slider from the right to shrink the ext3 partition and create free space on the hard drive, which will take the NTFS XP partition. Make sure that the free space is sufficient to hold XP (at least 2GB - preferably 5GB). Then click 'Resize/Move' to confirm the selection, and 'Apply' back in the main screen to carry out the pending change.
Step 3: Install Windows XP
Restart the system with the Windows XP CD and boot into the install program.
Unfortunately XP isn't so adaptive at handling existing partitions during installation. It detects the two Ubuntu partitions and marks then C: and E: accordingly. The remaining unpartitioned space which is available for XP will be marked as F:.
For the operating system and the vast majority of Windows applications which have properly-coded installation scripts, this is not a problem. Some older applications will assume that C: is the system partition and may bring up errors. There are ways of changing the drive letter assignation of the system partition, but in this scenario it's strongly discouraged.
Unfortunately XP isn't so adaptive at handling existing partitions during installation. It detects the two Ubuntu partitions and marks then C: and E: accordingly. The remaining unpartitioned space which is available for XP will be marked as F:.
For the operating system and the vast majority of Windows applications which have properly-coded installation scripts, this is not a problem. Some older applications will assume that C: is the system partition and may bring up errors. There are ways of changing the drive letter assignation of the system partition, but in this scenario it's strongly discouraged.
Step 4: Partition inactive.
To insult to injury, XP detects the Linux partition as an active system partition and won't install unless it marks this partition as inactive.
Step 5: Restore the GRUB boot loader
Once XP has been installed, it will boot happily into XP but there's no sign of Ubuntu. To reinstate GRUB as the system bootloader it needs to be reinstalled into the MBR.
Boot the system from the Ubuntu Live CD and select 'Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer'.
Boot the system from the Ubuntu Live CD and select 'Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer'.
Open a Terminal session - Applications, Accessories, Terminal
To enter the GRUB configuration mode, type in 'sudo grub' and press Enter. Then type in the following commands in sequence:
- root (hd0,0)
- setup (hd0)
- root (hd0,0)
- setup (hd0)
Reboot the system. You'll get the GRUB bootloader but Windows XP won't be an option - we need to add this to the boot options.
Boot into Ubuntu and open up another Terminal session. Then, type in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Scroll down to the bottom of the file and type in the following text strings:
title Windows XP
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Save the file and reboot. When the GRUB loader launches hit ESC for the boot menu. Windows XP is the last option - select it and XP will load.
If you want to make the GRUB menu always available, boot back into Ubuntu and edit the MENU.LST file. Find the hiddenmenu text string and change it to #hiddenmenu.
To increase the menu timeout, change the default timeout 3 to something more appropriate.
Boot into Ubuntu and open up another Terminal session. Then, type in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Scroll down to the bottom of the file and type in the following text strings:
title Windows XP
root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Save the file and reboot. When the GRUB loader launches hit ESC for the boot menu. Windows XP is the last option - select it and XP will load.
If you want to make the GRUB menu always available, boot back into Ubuntu and edit the MENU.LST file. Find the hiddenmenu text string and change it to #hiddenmenu.
To increase the menu timeout, change the default timeout 3 to something more appropriate.
Published: Oct 31, 2008 · Last Updated: May 06, 2009
2 Comments
- PoblanoKBowz Nov 4, 2008 at 03:01pmOne word. Wubi.http://wubi-installer.org/
- ChipotleMJReno Feb 15, 2013 at 01:59amHandy if you don't want to remove your Linux installation. I still think it's best to install Windows first, then Linux is you can.