[SOLVED] Ubuntu, New User

[samdlr]

I am considering installing Ubuntu along side my windows XP.
I have a 500GB HardDrive. Will Ubuntu give me an option to add a partition to my C: Drive? I do not want to accidently reformat my Harddrive. Also, If I was to get a Virus on windows XP can I use Linux to scan Windows XP for the infection and remove it?
One last question, should I install Linux on a second HardDrive instead?

Thanks

[smolloy]

I am considering installing Ubuntu along side my windows XP.
I have a 500GB HardDrive. Will Ubuntu give me an option to add a partition to my C: Drive? I do not want to accidently reformat my Harddrive.

The ubuntu installation will give you the option to shrink the C: drive, and create a new partition there. But first make sure to backup your data and defragment C: from inside Windows. Seriously -- don't do anything like this without backups.

Also, If I was to get a Virus on windows XP can I use Linux to scan Windows XP for the infection and remove it?

You could mount the drive from within Linux (Ubuntu should do this automatically, and then scan it with ClamAv.

One last question, should I install Linux on a second HardDrive instead?

You can install it on a separate partition created from shrinking C:, or on a separate hard drive. It's really up to you and how much space you think you need.

[jmadero]

With that much space I would highly suggest the following:

For Windows OS ("C:/") I would make it 30 gigs (unless you have a ton of software installed on it, then make it up to 100 max)

For Ubuntu:

When you go through the install do the following when it asks how to do the partitions:

Select "Manual Partition"

Create a new partition from the space made available after shrinking the Windows partition. Make this partition 10 gigs, make it mount to "/" (this is called the root directory and is where all Ubuntu programs are installed, you won't need more than 10 gigs). Make this partition an "ext 3" partition

Create another partition which is 20 gigs. Mount it to "/home" (this is called your home directory, it's where all your configuration happens and it's always good to keep it separate from the root if possible, it is similar to making a "D:/" in Windows and installing all your software separate from the main OS. Also make this an "ext 3" partition

Create another partition with all but 1 gig of the remaining space. Mount this to "/media/shared". Make this partition a "Fat 32 partition". This partition will be able to share between Windows and Ubuntu (it will show as the "D:/" in Windows and just a really big shared partition in Ubuntu). If you are working on a document or something and want to work on it in Windows and Linux, also putting videos, music, etc... in this space makes it easy to share between the OS's

Make the remaining 1 gig SWAP space. This is like hard drive RAM (it's the easiest way to phrase it).


The reason why I like making a separate /home from / is because if something goes wrong with the OS (Ubuntu) you can reinstall without losing all of your configurations (like all the fancy visuals, firefox bookmarks, thunderbird mail configurations (and the mail itself), etc.... If you are like me you'll definitely screw up a Linux OS at least once or twice (I've probably done it at least 25 times by just installing beta or alpha stuff, messing around with configurations, etc....

The easiest way to shrink the C:/ is to use the Live Ubuntu cd. Once Ubuntu boots up from the CD go to system, admin, partition editor. it's fairly easy from here, just click on "Reside partition" and shrink it down to the 30-100 gigs (whatever you prefer).

Hope this isn't too confusing. Good luck and welcome to the forums

[samdlr]

Thank you Smolloy,

I think I am going to start this project tomorrow morning.

[samdlr]

Thanks a lot jmadero,

I have been doing a lot of research on this and agree with your suggestions. I already tried the LiveCD and like it a lot. I saw the partition editor that you are talking about. But I will not mess with that until I defrag and back-up XP.
I am a little confused about the Fat32. I thought this option was limited to 4 GBs or something like that.

I have to look into this.

Thanks alot

[techieMoe]

I am a little confused about the Fat32. I thought this option was limited to 4 GBs or something like that.

With all due respect to jmadero, the extra FAT32 partition is not strictly necessary to share data between Windows and Ubuntu. Although it's true that this would allow a separate partition that both operating systems could read, if all you want to do is drag and drop files to and from your Windows partition you can do that from inside Ubuntu without any special steps.

You can mount NTFS (Windows) partitions in Ubuntu the same as any other drive. This allows you read and write abilities to your C drive from within Linux.

The downside to this is that XP can't read Linux partitions without some tweaking, so you wouldn't have as easy a time pulling something out of Linux from inside of XP, which is the purpose of the FAT32 partition. It all depends on how you plan on using your two operating systems.

[jmadero]

Thanks techieMoe for pointing that out. The reason I used to do the shared partition when I had Windows on my machine is because I liked having a D:/ anyways in Windows so I thought why not...I preferred installing software on a D:/ (as mentioned just to keep most software separate from the OS). Also, I consistently found myself forgetting to save in the windows partition so I would have to reboot, go into Ubuntu, move the file to windows, etc.... Once I made a shared partition I just got in the habit of pretty much saving everything in there.

As for the 4 gigs, that's for a single file I believe. You can have a much bigger hard drive but a single file cannot be greater than 4 gigs (which is rare anyways). You could make a shared NTFS partition (or just go with what Moe said and just save things in Ubuntu on your windows partition).

Hope that helps

[samdlr]

I got it, thanks alot for your help.