True I didnt mean leave fat32 but fat32 or unformated linux works with much better. Ubuntu will re-format for it's structure.
Sent from my iPhone On Oct 17, 2009, at 3:51 PM, Rick Kunath <k9ao at charter.net> wrote: > On Saturday 17 October 2009 3:06:19 pm William Douglas wrote: >> In order to properly install dual boot with XP and Ubuntu you need to >> split the hard drive using a partition utility and then format the >> empty partition as FAT32 to install ubuntu to it. Ubuntu cannot set >> up >> on a NTFS drive which is XP's default file structure. > > You really don't need to format the new second partition at all after > shrinking the existing NTFS partition and creating the new one. Just > leave it > unformatted and let the Linux installer format it to whatever file > system you > decide to use. That would be ReiserFS for me here. It will create the > partition structure for you. > > FAT32 is not a journaling file system, so you would not want to use > that for > Linux anyway and I suspect the Linux installer will just reformat > that to > something appropriate anyway. > > As to partitioning utilities, Mandriva's installer does a fine job at > repartitioning existing NTFS drives. I don't know about the Ubuntu > installer, > I've never tried it. As for pay partitioning utilities, for mixed > Windows and > Linux stay (make that run away fast) from Partition Magic. It's a > solid > program, but makes the false assumption that *nix partitions must > start on a > hard drive cylinder boundary, which is not a requirement and many > don't. If > you ever use anything else to work with partitions, or use PM on an > already > partitioned partition set up with a *nix partitioning utility or one > that is > properly aware, you'll have a blown hard drive. Paragon's Hard drive > Manager > is aware of properly handling *nix and other partitions and does not > have the > problem of cylinder boundaries that PM does. I own that one, but > mostly just > use the Mandriva utility to do the partitioning these days. > > If you just use the utility to shrink the existing Windows NTFS > partition, > leaving the amount of hard drive space that you want free and > unpartitioned, > let the Linux installer decide the rest, and then install GRUB > automatically > into the MBR, and you will have a dual boot working setup. > > I do things more complex here because I have many Linux and > Microsoft versions > on the same machine. I won't go into that now. It's not hard but > takes just a > little more planning and a different bootloader in the MBR chaining > to the > individual bootloaders in the various partition's boot partition > root sector. > > I've had W98, 2K, XP, W7, Solaris 8 and 9, and quite a few Linux > distros all > installed and multi-booting on the same machine. I never share home > or other > directories across the various Linux distros because the configuration > differences are just not worth the needless grief across various > versions of > the applications. Hard drives are cheap enough now not trying to get > multiple > revisions of apps that have changing configs working is just not > worth the > grief. I keep them separate and never have an issue. I do share the > swap > partition under Linux. > > Rick Kunath, k9ao > _______________________________________________ > fldigi-alpha mailing list > fldigi-alpha at lists.berlios.de > https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/fldigi-alpha
