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Donec elit nulla, pulvinar nec porta sed, hendrerit eget metus. Suspendisse porttitor ligula non felis volutpat pretium? Praesent laoreet nisl a eros ultricies in lacinia Duel booting is a useful, useful procedure that allows you to have multiple (or in this case two) operating systems to play around with on the same machine. I personally duel boot because I need applications that my institution supports that are only available in Windows, and I just plain prefer Linux. It can be a bit of an intimidating process, but it's actually pretty straightforward.
To begin with, you need to create a partition for Linux. A partitioning is essentially splitting your hard drive into multiple "mini" drives. It's akin to having one big house, but making it into two apartments to support more than one family. The size of the house is the same, but now you have two dwellings for two families.
To begin:
In Windows, open up disk management. Look at the graphic and determine the "location" Windows is present in (it'll usually be the C:/ drive). Right click on the graphic and select "shrink partition".
Decide how much space you want to allocate to the new partition. For Ubuntu, I recommend the minimum being at least 10 gigs, more is preferred if you want to use lots of different programs. Generally, the more space you're willing to allocate, the better.
Once you have shrunk the volume, head on to Ubuntu.com and download the ISO if you haven't already.
Burn the ISO onto disc or flash drive (we have tutorials on how to do that on this site, here and here).
Then, restart the computer and when the BIOS flashes (usually demarked by the computer's manufacturer logo right when you turn on the computer) check to see how to access the computer's boot options.For newer machines, this is usually F12 or F10. Older machines may require you to change the boot order through the computer's BIOS first. If that's the case, choose the USB or disc drives first and then change the boot order back after Ubuntu is installed.
Once you have booted into the disc media housing the Operating system, follow the onscreen instructions.
First, click Install Ubuntu.
Then choose your language and keyboard.
Then you will want to select installation type and make sure both check boxes are filled. It's not essential to the installation, but it will save you some time later on.
If you're duel booting, you can select either "install Ubuntu alongside them" or "Something else".I prefer something else as it gives you more control.
Then, with that free partition you created, highlight it and select to format it to ext4 and you will want the mount point to be / (forward slash). WARNING: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SELECTED THE FREE PARTITION AND NOT THE PARTITION WINDOWS IS IN. IF YOU FORMAT THE WRONG DRIVE YOU WILL LOSE INFORMATION.
Then click ok and enjoy the graphical trip of Ubuntu while it's installing.
The hard part is done! Enjoy and happy computing.
Categories:
dual boot,
linux,
Ubuntu how to's,
ubuntu 11.10,
Ubuntu Oneiric,
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