I ♥ Ubuntu
My newish Dell Latitude barfed up the blue screen of death the other day. Sadly, nothing could restore the beast—a clean install of Windows XP was the only remedy. I only hoped that there was a way to save some of the recent work files from the hard drive. A co-worker mentioned that maybe, just maybe, I could boot up with a Linux CD and try to read the drive.
To make a long story short, I just happened to have an Ubuntu disk lying around that did the trick. Ubuntu fired right up, mounted the old Windows NTFS drive, connected to my Home Directory, and copied my precious files to a safe place on the network. Wow! And it all ran from memory so I didn’t even have to install it.
That alone would have swayed me to carry an Ubuntu CD in my bag of tricks, but Ubuntu’s great looks and ease of use really made me want to play with it more. I was impressed enough to attempt the über-geeky dual-boot setup on the laptop. And let me tell ya, I can’t imagine that setting up two operating systems on one machine is any easier than this:
- [Re]install a fresh version of WinXP and all its updates
- download the latest (free) Ubuntu ISO and burn to a CD (ISO Recorder worked well for me)
- defragment the hard drive (to get all existing Windows files packed tightly together)
- boot from the Ubuntu CD
- double-click the Install icon on the Ubuntu desktop and follow the instructions (deciding how big to make the OS partitions was the biggest mental challenge; I chose to go with 60GB for WinXP, leaving 30GB for Ubuntu)
That’s it! Everything I needed to pull off this task is included—yup, even the partitioning software. After rebooting I now have the option of starting up Ubuntu (the default) or Windows XP. No problemo!
Once installed, Ubuntu has lots of top-notch applications preinstalled such as Firefox, OpenOffice, and GIMP—with the ability to easily install more via Add/Remove Applications (which draws from free open source apps on the web). Updates for the OS and the applications are downloaded automatically and also installed easily. Neither Windows XP nor Mac OS X seem this easy.
For the next step, I would like to set up my laptop so that I can work in WinXP while running a LAMP web server (with Ruby on Rails, Python, etc.) in a virtual window. Has anyone done this? Would VMWare do the trick?
To summarize, I am very impressed with this version of Ubuntu (version 6.06). Did I mentioned how easy and fun it is to work with? Do yourself a favor and at least run Ubuntu from a CD and see what you think. It’s a solid operating system and well worth your time.
Additional Resources:
- Jason Clark’s HOWTO Recover Files from a Non-Bootable Windows PC using Ubuntu Live
- Oreilly LinuxDevCenter’s Creating a Dual-Boot Windows XP and Ubuntu Laptop (based on a previous Ubuntu version that lacked the easy partitioning and install)
- Unofficial Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake Starter Guide
- Installing Ubuntu: A comparison of Ubuntu 6.06 and Windows XP (another happy install experience)
Steve — I would like to see the laptop in action. One question: did you reinstall Win because of the BSOD problems you were having, or was it necessary to do that before installing Ubuntu? Did Ubuntu handle the re-partitioning for you? (Um, I guess that’s two questions…)
Regarding your VMWare question: I am breaking news here on Betech that has not been published elsewhere. Today I confirmed that both Microsoft and VMWare will do back-to-back presentations of their Virtualization Solutions at an LSP Summer Skills sessions scheduled for July 26. Watch the LSP list and my work blog for further details.
Sean: good catch, I reinstalled WinXP because of my blue screen of death problems. XP was dead and wouldn’t start in safe mode or with a command line. You may not need to reinstall Windows before repartitioning but it seems the most efficient way of ensuring that the files are as tightly compressed as possible. And besides, we all know how reinstalling Windows can be like putting on a fresh set of tires.
To elaborate on your second question: yes, the partitioning was handled by Ubuntu. And there were several options for the more advance/adventurous users. Defragging WinXP was done with the Windows disk tools.
Thanks for the info on VMWare. I’ll be there!
I don’t know if you could access the LAMP install through the virtual machine but, Virtual PC is now a freedownload so go and check it out.
Ubuntu really is amazingly easy to install and get going. It was so much easier then when I tried to get Debian running 5 years ago (eventually successfully). Apt-get is great, although I do prepare the *BSD and Gentoo ports style setup better.
heyas all.
my 40 gig drive is going to good use now. I have installed UBUNTU and have ordered KUBUNTU.
I dont know how to install the driver for my ati radeon 9600xt.
Actually i dont know if i am meant to be downloading and installing XFREE86 or the XORG version of the driver. I am downloading them both but i dont know how to do anything in Linux really.
I dont know where I am meant to set up my modem or set up a net account. (no INETWIZ.EXE)
So yeah, can someone help me out with getting my ATI driver installed?
and does anyone know of a good long PDF file i can read and wrap my brain around.
I’m still a Windows user, but I want to use Linux as much as possible.
Thanks.
Hey all,
Just some information you might find useful. When working with Ubuntu in the past I have found this guide particularly useful: http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Dapper, which was mentioned in the article. It has a link to a walkthrough for ATI drivers: http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Dapper_Installation_Guide.
I am wondering why you want to run a LAMP server in a Windows environment? Why not run a WAMP server at native speeds? There are several amazing packages which will set up a WAMP server with minimal fuss. One great one I have used in the past is WAMPServer (www.wampserver.com). You also won’t have to work around any strange networking issues that might crop up with a virtual machine.
If you really want Ruby On Rails, why not go with Instant Rails? Check this out: http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl.
–
Wolfgang Richter