thinking about giving ubuntu a go...

[JimmyBoy]

was just on the homepage and it looks pretty cool, but obviously i want to be able to fall back to windows once ive had a play, whats the easiest way to create a new partition on my hard drive so i can install ubuntu onto it and if i dont like it get rid of it again? (its currently downloading away at 1.1mb/s) will i easily be able to delete the partition and will it cause any problems to windows which will be installed on the same drive?

also if i do install it will i have to download certain drivers before hand?

[Agent]

To get the 'feel' of it. Download the ISO, burn to disk and boot from it.

You then have it running from CD with no modification to your system

[chrestomanci]

also if i do install it will i have to download certain drivers before hand?

No, Drivers for everything remotely mainstream will be included, If you have something obscure then most distros will download anything else you need during the installation.

As Agent said, you would be best booting from the CD and using it in demo mode to get a feel. If everything works then all the drivers are on the CD so you should have no trouble.

If you do decide to install, then you will get a cleaner setup if you create a portion just for linux, but you don't have to. The latest Ubuntu supports WUBI, that lets you install it without creating a separate partion. Instead a special (huge) file is created on your windows disc. To un-install you just delete the file.

[alchemistkevin]

Agree with Agent above, when I started with Linux - I tried to do what you're trying do... ended up trashing a couple of systems trying do double boot, etc... to top it up, I was always so confident that I never backed my data

to be fair to me the it was before the OS on CD idea came out...

[alchemistkevin]

Ubuntu is good but suse is pretty easy to get started with too.

[JimmyBoy]

thanx for some brilliant replies! i think i'll burn the iso sometime and have a play with the demo mode. wubi sounds really good aswell!

not to mention suse is also going to get researched thanx guys

[HSK]

JimmyBoy I think I might give this a go also.

[mikerr]

Run it from a 2GB pendrive:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/11...dows/#more-630

[Barrichello]

Would definitely second Wubi. Is great for the first time user. Nice and simple to add/remove. Of course if you decide to stick with it then probably best to install the "real deal" iso due to the slightly higher disk access speeds and reliability that you would get with a dedicated partition.

I installed 8:04 via wubi for the parents. They no longer boot old windows install up, im pretty proud of em bless

[hibby]

If you are installing on a clean partition and would like to be able to fall back to just using Windows you will probably want to make sure you keep the Windows bootloader. Keep an eye out during the Ubuntu install for an advanced option to install the linux bootloader to the partition you're installing onto (rather than overwriting the main bootloader). When you create the linux partition it's probably a good idea to jot down the reference linux uses, e.g. sda2. The next step is to get the Windows bootloader to recognise it, otherwise you'll never be able to boot into linux.

Which Windows version are you running? On Vista this is easy to do, you need a program called EasyBCD that does all the hard work for you. XP is more complicated, and having not tried it I'm not sure where to link you to. Try the Ubuntu forums, they're usually very helpful.

[chrestomanci]

If you are installing on a clean partition and would like to be able to fall back to just using Windows you will probably want to make sure you keep the Windows bootloader. Keep an eye out during the Ubuntu install for an advanced option to install the linux bootloader to the partition you're installing onto (rather than overwriting the main bootloader). When you create the linux partition it's probably a good idea to jot down the reference linux uses, e.g. sda2. The next step is to get the Windows bootloader to recognise it, otherwise you'll never be able to boot into linux.

I would disagree, I think the linux boot loader is better, at least if you are running XP (I have no experience of Vista)

If you think about it, linux boot loaders are designed to co-exist with windows and other operating systems, but the windows one only copes with others as an afterthought.

When you install, you won't loose the windows boot loader, as when windows is installed it puts a copy of it's boot loader on both the drive's MBR (Master boot record), and the MBR of the partion you install it on. If you put a linux boot loader on the drive's MBR it will chain to the windows loader on the MBR of that partion.

[hibby]

True, the Linux bootloader is better in that it is happy to co-exist with whatever it finds. But if there's any doubt as to whether Linux is going to be kept then you can prevent future problems by not nuking the Windows bootloader.

I do it because Windows overwrites the MBR the most whenever it dies and needs re-installing But then I've got Vista and so can use EasyBCD to put Linux back in the bootloader.