Ubuntu: The Switch ( 3 of ? ) - Installation
June 19, 2007 – 7:00 pmPrevious Entries:
Ubuntu: The Switch (1 of ?)
Ubuntu: The Switch (2 of ?) - First Steps
Welcome back. Now is the moment of truth, I will say goodbye to Vista on my Dell Precision and say hello to Ubunutu. We’ll, no more procrastinating… let’s get started.
The Installation
I start at 5:48pm (and 7 seconds)
- In goes the fresh new Ubuntu CD (I am inside Vista at this point). I am using version 7.4 Desktop Edition.
- I write down the current IP adress I have assigned to this machine before rebooting (almost forgot about that).
- I note the peripherals that I have currently attached via USB (I forgot to do this last time)
- Two External Drives
- Pocket PC (will remove for now)
- Webcam (will remove for now)
- iPod (will remove for now)
- HP OfficeJet (will remove for now)
- So I now only have the one external drive connected.
- I hit F12 to go into the boot menu.
- I choose Start or Install Ubuntu.
- The orange bar going back and forth reminds me of Kit.
- And then there is some Zen like sound….
- The desktop has now loaded and I go ahead and click on the Install icon.
- I choose my time zone, keyboard layout.
- At the “Prepare disk space” section I choose “Guided - use entire disk”.
- At the “Migrate Documents and Settings” screen it does not find any users or operating systems suitable for importing form. I find this odd, maybe Vista is not supported yet.
- Ubuntu asks “Who are you?”. I reply that it is none of their business.
- I am notified that Ubuntu is “Ready to install” (thanks to justnik, lol). I note there is an Advanced button and since I consider myself Advanced I click it. Then I click OK and smile.
- I click Install and watch in wonder as Ubuntu does its install magic.
- I click Restart Now and remove the CD.
- I watch in awe as as my computer loads up Ubuntu…
- I log in! More Zen like music…
- I see a notification that informs me that software updates are available. There are 60 total! I go ahead and install them.
- After successful update I am asked to do a system restart.
- I do the berries and cream dance… (replace Starburst with Ubuntu)
The whole process took 1 hour 8 minutes and 14 seconds.
The next post in the series will discuss how I set up my work environment in Ubuntu.
3 Responses to “Ubuntu: The Switch ( 3 of ? ) - Installation”
The reason you couldn’t import anything is that you didn’t split the disk between Windows and Ubuntu. You gave the whole disk to Ubuntu. So it knew it was going to nuke the Windows partition, and that means post-Ubuntu-install you weren’t going to be importing anything from Windows :).
Ooops.
Even if you plan to do nothing but Ubuntu, the solution is a three-stepper:
1) BACK UP THE WINDOWS STUFF!
2) Tell Ubuntu to shrink the Windows partition and install itself in whatever is left over. You get to determine percentages. It doesn’t really matter how much you give Ubuntu, except it better be enough to swallow what’s coming in from the Windows side. In other words, if you have a 100gig HD, Windows is filling 50gigs and you suspect 35gig of that is your stuff, give Ubuntu at least 40gig - 5gig for Ubuntu, 35gig for your stuff.
3) Once Ubuntu is running and has all your stuff in it, use Ubuntu’s disk management system to nuke the Windows partition and stretch Ubuntu’s chunk to fill the whole disk. I’d use Gnome Partition Editor for this last step.
The alternative is to back up your data in step one, do Ubuntu as a whole-disk install and then manually port your data as in step 2 from the backup. This is fine if you’re somewhat experienced. Right now the auto-import/convert tool is only useful when you start out in dual-boot mode. That might get fixed for Gutsy Gibbon…
Jim
By Jim March on Jun 20, 2007
Thank you for your contribution!
By ethomas on Jun 20, 2007