Ubuntu and vista dual boot

Hello,
im wondering the best way to sort out the bootloader for dual booting ubuntu and vista.
i could install grub to the ubuntu partition and then install easybcd on vista and tell it where ubuntu is installed.
is their anyother way?

also how stable is read and write support for ntfs?
I have an empty 10gb partition(currently ntfs since i was gonna use it for windows 2000 pro but will delete it since its empty)
for installing ubuntu but i dont really wanna change any other partion to create a seprate home partition for ubuntu.

you may be able to tempt me to resize some partitions to create a seprate home partition.

in most distros i can press esc at boot time and get a verbose startup but this doesnt seem to be the case for ubuntu?

im currently trying ubuntu on my old machine to try some stuff out.

any known software that wont work on 64bit version?
such as flash player,compiz fusion etc.
in a min ill look at the forum sticky at the ubuntu links.
thanks in advance

 

Hi lodore,

I am dual booting Vista x64 and Ubuntu x64 right now, but I choose to keep both clean and use separate HD's with one OS on each, completely independant from each other. I choose which to boot from the BIOS menu when I hit F10 at boot time. Or I can set up the default boot OS as desired in the BIOS setup.

NTFS read/write has worked great for me in Ubuntu also. No issues at all. That's one thing I like about Ubuntu, most everything works and works well out of the box. The only thing I manually installed were the ATI drivers.

Just about all software works fine on both Vista and Ubuntu x64. There is an alpha/beta flash x64 for Linux that I've used without issues also. Not using it now, but I did a few weeks back and it worked fine. Otherwise x32 flash also works fine in Linux x64 browsers via the repo's.

 

Hello,
I was trying ubuntu on my old dell pc today.
things didnt really go well.
I wanted to try out compiz fusion.
so i followed a guide at howtoforge.
so i went to system,hardware and it didnt show any nvidia drivers to install...
ok so i thought well ill open up the package manager and search for nvidia.
i accidently installed the wrong driver 177 instead of the legacy 71 driver.
so it wanted me to open up synaptic package manager to sort out the conflict.
so i did it uninstalled one driver and installed the 71 driver.
during the install under details it said something like must run dkms before?
but the text scrolled so fast i couldnt read it.
I restarted the computer to ensure the driver would try and load
it started in verbose mode and the nvidia driver tryed to start but failed and didnt say why.

not a good experience.

i didnt think i would have trouble installing a legacy graphics driver for my old dell pc. the graphics card is an nvidia riva tnt2 32mb

 

I have best luck with graphics drivers by downloading them off the vendor's site and installing manually. You usually also get the very latest that way too. Nvidia should be pretty common and easy to deal with. Other drivers for an older PC should pretty much be handled automatically by Ubuntu though, or at least I would think so. But anyway, when I used the ATI drivers offered by Ubuntu, I did have some problems, glitches etc, but using the ones downloaded from ATI site, all went smooth as silk as they say.

 

Hello Kerodo,
the problem with downloading the drivers direct from the nvidia website is that i have to set it up manually using the commandline.
i just dont get why the legacy driver in the repos cannot start.

 

The "problem" with manual installs is that you don't get updates via the package manager, which is something you may want to. Still, if it works for you ...
Mrk

 

Seems to work best for me Mrk, and I follow the updates on the ATI site and install as they come out. But true, repo's are a bit easier in general....

 

The command line is something you'll need to deal with sooner or later in Linux, there is really no avoiding it. In something like Ubuntu, you're shielded from it most of the time, but inevitably there will come a need for it sooner or later.

 

Think of the command line as writing versus showing people pictures. Sometimes, it's easier to write ...
Mrk

 

i aways just search for ubuntu problems at ubuntuforums and always get the answers there. i'm sure you can get a fix for the driver there, here's a post that explains a few of the changes made in the new ubuntu -
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=945557

it was when when Intrepid Ibex was still in testing, but still fairly recent. Intrepid Ibex is the one that just got released isn't it?

 

you shouldnt need to use the commandline for a desktop operating system.
I may try ubuntu on my main pc as a dualboot soon but not sure atm.
im sure if i could get it all working i would be happy with it but i cant atm.
im surprised the nvidia legacy driver wasnt shown under system/hardware.
i was really surprised that it didnt work when i installed the legacy driver from the repos.

any tips on installing nvidia legacy driver on ubuntu?

the problem with the "freedom" is that you have to install alot of stuff that is non free and is called "evil" in alot of places.
such as graphics drivers,codecs for music and dvds etc.

what really annoys me thou is that freebsd ports have an almost unlimited amount of applications. the problem is that the installer is hard to use and even when installed theere isnt a gui package manager to sort out installing,updating and uninstall ports and system updates.

desktopbsd and pcbsd is a start but with pcbsd a update of the system overwrites pretty much everything including any installed ports.
when i get a job im thinkin about getting a mac. it means i would have a stable operating system and could learn the commandline whenever i want to.

 

try using the nvidia-glx-71 driver, i looked and found this page
http://albertomilone.com/wordpress/?p=212

i recognise him, i think he might be the guy who writes envy so he should know what he's talking about, if you search for nvidia-glx-71 (71.86.04): on that page it has RIVA TNT/2 there.

 

thanks ill have a look tomorrow

 

Hello,
an update.
I decided to install ubuntu 8.10 on my main machine as dual boot.
my second hard drive had one partiton.
so i resized it.
then i created 10gb /
15gb for /home
and a 2gb swap
installed grub to the / partition and got the vista bootloader to find it using easybcd.
installed all updates
on this machine i was notifyed of the nvidia driver right away.
i managed to get flash and java working.
all my music plays in Rhythmbox now that ive installed all the codecs.

downloaded amsn to use as my messenger client.

managed to get compiz fusion working.

only one issue
ever since i installed the nvidia driver i cant get more than two virtual desktops so i cannot do the cube with compiz fusion=(
so far havent found any information about that.

overall a very good experince.
havent used windows since.

woot yes i got dvd playing working!!!!
found a link telling me it is called libdvdcss2 and not libdvdcss
so just installed via commandline using apt-get libdvdcss1

 

Not all cards are capable of compiz. If you install Ubuntu and Click /System/Administration and Hardware Drivers is not an option, then your card doesn't have an nvidia driver available.

Installing a driver that doesn't match your card is going to cause the failure you encountered. Check to see if you have a backup of the original xorg.conf file and restore it.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_x86_71.86.06.html Is this the driver you installed? It should work but whether or not Compiz will work with it, I don't know.