Installing Ubuntu Alongside Vista.

Hi there,
Please bear with me I'm new to Linux. What happens is that Ubuntu gives the opportunity to install it in different ways. My obvious choice was to pick the 'Windows installer (Wubi)' which does an excellent job. The only problem is that it automatically downloads and installs Ubuntu 64 bit (probably it detects my CPU as 64 capable) and everything works out perfectly, except the memory usage is double compared to 32 bit and my CPU is also working harder (the fan is constantly on).

So I thought I'll try to download the 32 bit using 'Download and Install' and choose 'Run Ubuntu alongside Vista':
http://www.ubuntu.com/download
Now according to their 'Show me How' (see attachments), there should be an option to install 'Ubuntu alongside Windows'. Unfortunately when I get to that stage I get only 2 options, either 'Replace windows with Ubuntu' or 'Something else. You can create or resize partitions yourself...' which is too complicated for me.

I can't understand why this is happening, ideally it would be so easy if 'Wubi' gave me the choice to install 32 or 64 bit.

Thank you in advance for any comment.

 

Hi Osaban!

First, you should get rid of the Wubi if it's causing your fan to run more than usual.

It's better to do an alongside installation.

The problem seems to be the number of partitions that are already in use. You could look at this thread for posts by Noob.

Basically, you may have to reduce the number of partitions occupied by Windows to allow Ubuntu to install alongside.

 

Thanks Vasa, I didn't realize that Wubi itself could be the reason behind my CPU extra activity.

Indeed, but this is my problem, the option to install alongside Windows is missing on the installation window.(Is it because I need to create a partition for Window and 'free unallocated space'? My drive is not partitioned)

I have one HDD (it is a notebook) and it's not partitioned. Reading Noob's thread and Cet's, it looks like I should create one partition for Windows and one for Ubuntu, that's not a problem, I have successfully partitioned my drive in the past except it seems to be rather critical the dual boot business.

I remember installing Ubuntu 2 years ago on an old desktop as the only OS and liked it a lot, I had some problems with my printer but nothing really worrying. I think I'll have to do some reading.

 

As vasa1 notes above this is probably due to the partitions.How have you partitioned your drive? Have you allocated free space or unallocated space?

This is my process for Ubuntu and Mint. The Ubuntu installer changed in version 10.10 (or 10.04, can't remember) and the option to install to free space was removed from the install screen and replaced by the "Install alongside windows" option. However if you had already created free space in windows Ubuntu wouldn't recognise the free space and only offer to overwrite or resize your windows partition. What worked for me was to delete the free space from windows so that it shows as unallocated space, Ubuntu will then recognise it and you should see and be able to use the "Install alongside windows" option.


So,
1. in windows shrink volume by required amount to create free space
2. delete free space to create unallocated space
3. reinstall Ubuntu

 

Setcho thanks, what you say makes sense, and I'm going to try it out. One reason I'm resisting partitioning my drive is that all of my images are going to be useless in the future. I would expect this info to be available at the Ubuntu website, but perhaps I'm asking too much.

 

please go through Vasa post in details including subforms i know it take little bit time but worth reading once you go through them you get everything clear

 

I'm doing quite a bit of reading, but there are some things I can't understand. Originally all I wanted to do was to install Ubuntu alongside Vista, which seems to have a fully automated install. As I mentioned it didn't work automatically, hence my thread. Then yesterday I decided to install Ubuntu onto 2 other notebooks I have, still with the option 'Install Ubuntu alongside Windows', both running XP home SP3: on one machine the installation got stuck like with Vista (no such option), on the other everything went well, that is, the Ubuntu installer automatically created 3 partitions, one for Windows, one for Ubuntu, and one of 1GB which I don't know why it is there, now Windows can boot through the Ubuntu boot loader.

The 3 machines are all notebooks, with no partitions, one with Vista and two with XP Home, but the installer managed to install Ubuntu alongside Windows in only one of them. As far as I'm concerned I got what I wanted, to have Ubuntu properly installed without giving up Windows at least on one computer, the question still lingers though, why doesn't it work on the other machines?

 

Osaban, I think it would be wise to spend a while reading this excellent tutorial by one Mrkvonic. http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/dual-boot-windows-7-ubuntu.html

(You can have coffee breaks - recommended).

 

Even though we feel there are no partitions, there are! Windows has some sort of disk utility and Linux has some. While the Windows utility sees certain partitions, Linux sees them all.

If you could boot from each of the machines using the Ubuntu LiveCD/USB and run

Code:

sudo parted -l

and

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

and post the information, someone (not me) will be able to point out exactly how many partitions are on each box and how to proceed.

Briefly, I had a PC with what I thought were C, D, and E drives (logical partitions on one physical drive).

All three drives had abundant free space.

I couldn't install Ubuntu alongside Windows. The option didn't appear.

On asking @ the relevant forum and providing the fdisk and parted information, it was pointed out that I had a fourth partition, the boot sector.

The solution recommended was to transfer all the stuff from the E drive to the C or D drives and then, using the Windows utility, to delete the E drive. This left me with "unallocated" space in which Ubuntu happily installed alongside Windows.

I don't know anything about notebooks and how they are organized. What I wrote above relates to a standard laptop and ordinary hard disk.

 

The other thing, if you're going with Ubuntu is to sign up at askubuntu.com, launchpad.net, and ubuntuforums.org.

 

It recommends manual partitioning

 

Thank you both Vasa and Ocky! I have some interesting reading ahead, but I'm beginning to think that as I have several machines, it is probably easier to install Ubuntu on one as the sole OS, and use my imaging software to recover Windows if needed (I've read Mrkvonic's excellent tutorial, it can be done I'm sure, but I doubt about my skills and patience).