# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Linux/windows Dual Boot

## Tsen

Hey guys.  
So, I finally got off my butt and did it--backed up my music and some other random junk, then wiped the hard drive, partitioned it and set it up.
I&#39;m now dual booting between Ubuntu Linux and Windows XP Home Edition.
And really, now that I have something to compare Windows to directly...well, I&#39;m kind of disappointed in it.
Linux set up in about an hour, installed all of the drivers automatically (except my wireless card, whose manufacturer didn&#39;t make Linux drivers, so I had to install them manually, which wasn&#39;t nearly as hard as it sounds).  Upgrading to the latest versions of all my software was easy--took two clicks, less than three minutes and no reboots.  
In the end, I had to reboot Linux once, after I&#39;d installed the drivers for my wireless card.  Not because the system needed the boot, but because I hadn&#39;t plugged the card in yet, so I had to turn off the computer to do so.
Installing new programs was similarly easy to the system upgrading process--I just open Synaptic Program Manager, the default program managing app in Ubuntu, scroll to the program I want, sorted by category, click the install button.  That&#39;s it--Ubuntu automatically downloads, installs and updates my application menu.  Plus, the software&#39;s all free.  I&#39;ve got a 3D modeling program, an image editor, an office suite, a ton of games, an instant messenger, a web browser, and there&#39;s a lot more out there.  All free.

Then, to Windows.
Now, I tried to be understanding.  I mean, XP&#39;s a pretty old OS, relatively.  Ubuntu 6.06 is less than a year old, XP is over five.  
But still, it took SEVEN HOURS, THIRTEEN REBOOTS and THREE WINDOWS GENUINE ADVANTAGE VALIDATIONS.
It still doesn&#39;t have all my drivers fixed--The wireless driver is on the fritz and I get a cruddy connection and the universal media adapter installed by default in my computer doesn&#39;t work at all.  Linux had no problem with it, but apparently it&#39;s too much for Windows--the OS the adapter was designed for.
Ugh.  That&#39;s really all there is to it.

That&#39;s really all it took--Now, the only reason I use Windows is to play with Photoshop (I&#39;ve got the GIMP on Linux, but it isn&#39;t as powerful, and I&#39;m not used to the interface), and to play games, because unfortunately Age of Mythology, Age of Empires II, Morrowind and Dungeon Siege II don&#39;t run (well) on Linux.

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there.

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## Ynot

<PFFSH>
Luke....
<PFFSH>
Who&#39;s your daddy, Luke?
<PFFSH>

Nice one
best of both worlds
linux can be a lot of fun to play around with, as well
and with Ubuntu, you can be as geeky or not as you like.
but as you highlighted, native game support is pretty poor

anyway,
just don&#39;t start quoting uptimes
that&#39;s the linux equilivant of the emperor&#39;s blue ray of death

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## Tsen

> and with Ubuntu, you can be as geeky or not as you like.[/b]



Yeah, that&#39;s definitely a plus  :tongue2: 
Anyway, I forgot to add--
One thing that I appreciate Windows for--mp3s.  Linux can play &#39;em, but you have to install the software separately, it doesn&#39;t have native support.  This is because Linux is based entirely on open source, and for some reason they couldn&#39;t bundle the mp3 software with Linux.  It has support for other audio compression codecs--but by default, no software to convert mp3s to those codecs.
So blurgh.
I installed the software to let me play &#39;em, and it works quite nicely--you can even preview mp3s just by mousing over the file, which you can&#39;t do in Windows.  But the fact that it&#39;s not supported out-of-the-box is kind of a bummer.
And the audio players in general are a little...well, cruddy.  Of course, I&#39;m a bit picky when it comes to audio players.  Well, Songbird 1.0&#39;s should be out soon, and while I&#39;m not a big fan of the program so far, it seems to be one of the better options out there.

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## Merlock

No mp3 support? Ubuntu doesn&#39;t sound like much of a home-aimed distribution.
I dual boot Fedora 5 and Windows XP Home and have been for ages.
Linux isn&#39;t just "fun to play around with", I personally use it for professional needs (coding, testing, etc.) where as Windows I need mostly for games and partial professional needs including Photoshop, which I would never trade for the GIMP, no matter how open-sourced it is, hahah.

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## Tsen

It&#39;s supposed to be a home-aimed distro, but they kind of missed the mark on that point.  They tried to make up for it with OGG Vorbis support, which works quite nicely if you don&#39;t have an existing music library, but if you&#39;re a migrating Windows user with 7,700 songs like me...well, it&#39;s not as easy.  Not difficult by any means, it&#39;s just not native.  Bummer, but whatever.
I&#39;ve got to admit, the rest of the OS is extremely user-friendly, I got used to it in only a few minutes after never using Linux before in my life.

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## RetepNamenots

Do you *need* windows? I just use SuSE 10.1 because it does have so many advantages over windows. If I want to use windows (ie. for gaming etc) I just use a windows emulator (such as Wine)

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## Ynot

mp3 is a proprietary audio codec, with associated patents and royalty issues
so can&#39;t be bundled with GNU software
however, you can get the software seperately, to fill the hole

this is the very reason why open source codecs are around
(ogg vorbis, flac, etc.)
to get around this legal issue

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## Tsen

No, I don&#39;t _need_ it, but it&#39;s more than a convenience for me.  I&#39;d like to switch to just linux, but for now I&#39;ll just stick to using both.
Reasons:
-Photoshop and my games run better in Windows than they do in emulators, and with fewer problems
-I&#39;m not always the only user on my compy.  Since I&#39;m one of two people in my dorm with a compy, the other four need to use it sometimes.  They don&#39;t even know what Linux IS, let alone how to use it

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## Ynot

btw, on the games front

you may be interested in this
http://www.linux-gamers.net

You probably know this already, but I&#39;ll say it anyway
there&#39;s a linux program called Wine
that lets you run win32 programs under linux
(it&#39;s a windows emulator, in a nutshell)

works well most of the time
with no problems
some programs (games in particular) may need tinkering with

link above has a good forum for all things gamey on linux

and, just thought I&#39;d mention
no-one is on a mission to convert people, here
contrary to popular belief, most linux people really don&#39;t care if you use / like / bad-mouth / whatever linux or windows

use whatever you like
just be aware there are alternatives
each has pro&#39;s & con&#39;s

infact, I find it quite funny on this forum
mentioning no names
but there are 2 windows fan-boys that like to chirp in every now and then with useless comments
you know who you are   ::wink::

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## Merlock

Wine, or better yet WineX, aka Cedega - all can make gaming under Linux well and stable. Though nonetheless, when there&#39;s a possibility to have two partitions, one with Windows and one with Linux, there&#39;s nothing bad about it.

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## Tsen

Just curious, can Wine work with disc emulators?  &#39;Cuz I wouldn&#39;t mind using it if it was stable...but, well, some of my sources for games are only semi-legal at best.  Basically, are there programs like Daemon Tools that would work with a windows emulator?

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## Ynot

> Just curious, can Wine work with disc emulators?  &#39;Cuz I wouldn&#39;t mind using it if it was stable...but, well, some of my sources for games are only semi-legal at best.  Basically, are there programs like Daemon Tools that would work with a windows emulator?
> [/b]



don&#39;t see any reason why not
never tried it tho

just mount the image
and Cedega / Wine should see it as a CD

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## Merlock

Exactly, Linux doesn&#39;t need an emulator, you simply mount the image file and you&#39;re ready to go. Hmm, another plus for Linux comfort, heh.

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## Tsen

Including .bin/.cue&#39;s or .mdf/.mds&#39;s, or just .iso&#39;s and the like?

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## Merlock

> Including .bin/.cue&#39;s or .mdf/.mds&#39;s, or just .iso&#39;s and the like? [/b]



In a .cue/.bin pair, the .bin is the image file, a binary image of the disk, in a .mds/.mdf pair, the .mdf is the image file, the large binary file that is the image. The ISO is the same, the image file but without a paired info file with it. They&#39;re just formats for disk images, the binary image file is the one that should be mounted in each case.

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## Tsen

So it will work?
Wow.
I think linux is my new lover.

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## Pyrofan1

I&#39;m also dual-booting with Windows XP and ubuntu linux and i noticed that when i use windows it boots faster then it did before i installed linux.

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## Tsen

Huh...maybe mine does too.  Not sure, I haven&#39;t booted Windows again since I made the switch.   :tongue2:

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## Kaniaz

> took SEVEN HOURS[/b]



Er, are you sure you weren&#39;t trying to install XP onto a cheese cart or something? Seven hours? *SEVEN HOURS?* Something was clearly broke there.

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## Tsen

The actual installation was only about an hour, probably a little under.  It was the updates that kept dragging it out....

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## MSG

> The actual installation was only about an hour, probably a little under.  It was the updates that kept dragging it out....
> [/b]



Well, you&#39;re installing 5 years of updates, it&#39;s gonna take some time.  :tongue2:

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## Tsen

Exactly  :tongue2:

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## TweaK

I&#39;ve tried installing both Fedora and Slackware yesterday, and I must say..
I&#39;m not impressed. Fedora was a bitch to install, and it didn&#39;t work well. Slackware was a lot better, but the moment I wanted to boot back into Vista, it went bitching. The Vista DVD couldn&#39;t fix the boot sector, etc. I googled, but only a format would help me.

Thanks, Linux&#33;

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## Ynot

> I&#39;ve tried installing both Fedora and Slackware yesterday, and I must say..
> I&#39;m not impressed. Fedora was a bitch to install, and it didn&#39;t work well. Slackware was a lot better, but the moment I wanted to boot back into Vista, it went bitching. The Vista DVD couldn&#39;t fix the boot sector, etc. I googled, but only a format would help me.
> 
> Thanks, Linux&#33;
> [/b]



Vista decimates the MBR on installation, commandeering it completely and rendering any other OS previously installed inoperable
(even happens if you dual boot vista with XP)

Google "dual boot vista linux" for workarounds

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## Ne-yo

You know it&#39;s amazing how every Linux distribution detects the presence of another OS and configures the system accordingly, even being nice enough to add Windows to your boot loader automatically, should you choose to keep it. So why the hell can&#39;t Vista simply include a decent boot loader, thus removing the onus from the user, or the installer, to determine what boot loader is installed and configure it accordingly? This is definately a pet peeve of mine.

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## Ynot

> You know it&#39;s amazing how every Linux distribution detects the presence of another OS and configures the system accordingly, even being nice enough to add Windows to your boot loader automatically, should you choose to keep it. So why the hell can&#39;t Vista simply include a decent boot loader, thus removing the onus from the user, or the installer, to determine what boot loader is installed and configure it accordingly? This is definately a pet peeve of mine.
> [/b]



competition is bad   ::wink::  





> We are the Borg
> Lower your shields and surrender your ships
> Your culture will adapt to service us
> Resistance is futile[/b]

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## Kaniaz

Hay guys&#33; You might like to read this rationale about overwriting the MBR before you start calling it an _evil tactic_ to end all competition.

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## Ynot

you might want to read the comments on the article, as well

anyway,
this is pointless
it&#39;s the same set of arguments since win95

as I&#39;ve said before
use what you want to use
cause most people don&#39;t really care   ::wink::

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## Ynot

Plus, I really don&#39;t think the
"You may have a boot sector virus"
is really a valid reason to commandeer the whole system
I mean, really.....

Linux can, and does, plays nice with windows

Windows could at least have the courtesy to play nice back

that&#39;s all

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## TweaK

I agree. It seems the attitude coming from Linux towards Windows doesn&#39;t seem to be competitive as much as as wanting to be compatible with each other; For Windows, it&#39;s the complete other way around.

Still, I&#39;m a Windows user, and I will also want to use Windows. Therefore, until I get a laptop that reads my burned DVDs so I can install Linux on it, I will just keep using Windows.

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## Kaniaz

> you might want to read the comments on the article, as well[/b]



Half the people in the comments didn&#39;t even read the article (I saw about ten suggestions "why not autodetect what partition is what?" when it was already said why Windows doesn&#39;t do that). Don&#39;t see your point: nobody in them said anything smart in response other than "well, it should just work anyway&#33;".

And, like it said in the post, what&#39;s it meant to do? If you&#39;re using Linux&#39;s bootloader - not to mention all the versions there are - how is Windows meant to communicate to the bootloader "add me to list"? It just can&#39;t. Linux isn&#39;t being an oracle of openness and compatability here either, not to mention all the wonderful other OS&#39;s and god knows what other kinds of crap there could be to work with. It&#39;s the same way if you have the Windows bootloader. Linux is capable of hooking both OS&#39; when it can guess reasonably well, but I&#39;ve had distros that just overwrite my bootloader too and even then they can&#39;t get it right if there&#39;s three OS&#39; on your computer. It&#39;s not any OS&#39; fault, really (heck, the bootloader isn&#39;t even part of the OS you could argue) it&#39;s the way bootloaders work, but if you&#39;re a dumbo end-user and you install Windows to find you&#39;re still booting into Linux because it didn&#39;t want to overwrite your bootloader (&#39;what&#39;s a bootloader?&#39 :wink2: , well, I can imagine _that_ causing a lot of head scratching.

As for "commandeering the whole system", I mean, jeez. If you installed Linux you should be able to manage the feat of installing a boot loader like WinGRUB (or indeed just editing your boot.ini). It&#39;s not hard. You can&#39;t get Win 2000 and Win XP to dual boot easily either: _they overwrite each other&#39;s MBR too._ Nobody said dual-booting was going to be easy and Microsoft spending dev-time and effort on a feature that maybe 0.01% of its users ultimately care about (you won&#39;t see Grandma dual booting for a looong time) is not top of the priority list. I suppose it could be worse, it could actually be broke.

But it isn&#39;t: it just changes the bootloader over. Your data is not lost, and I&#39;ve done the bootloader pizzaz plenty of times myself. Linux, Windows or whatever isn&#39;t stealing anything or overwriting anyone&#39;s stuff, it just wants to run. Anyone installing more than one OS should consider configuring the bootloader par for the course. If there was some unified interface on linking a new OS into your bootloader, and Windows was overwriting it with blithe disregard, _then_ that&#39;d be foul play.

You can get lucky in cases where you&#39;ve started to install Linux from Windows and it can suitably guess how to link you up, but if you start reinstalling those OS&#39;es or adding another Linux is just as useless. Installing more than one OS is a generally advanced thing to be doing in the first place, you&#39;ve gotta expect some tinkering.

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## Ynot

Kaniaz,
I don&#39;t really want this to turn into a slagging match

lets agree to disagree   ::bigteeth::

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## Kaniaz

> I don&#39;t really want this to turn into a slagging match
> [/b]



<strike>It&#39;s too late, Ynot. *MY SLAG IS ON*. May you be stuck in a pit of useless, endless arguing forever&#33;</strike> _Okay._

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## TweaK

Well, I set up Fedora Core 6, and as long as you don&#39;t want to use it next to a Windows installation, I guess everything is fine - it works perfectly, and I love it.

It owns Slackware and Gentoo by far, imho.

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## Kaniaz

> It owns Slackware and Gentoo by far, imho.[/b]



Slackware all the way. It&#39;s the only distribution that didn&#39;t immediately puke on me all those years ago. And ever since that day, it won my heart.

Or the pieces of it after being so cruelly shred to pieces by the promises of an "easy installation" by Mandriva (bullshit) and "great times" with Red Hat* (it required more memory than Vista does now). Oh how emotional those Linux installations can be.

* Yeah, _Fedora._ You don&#39;t fool me with your name changes, stupid demons.

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## TweaK

Uh, not to be a bitch (but I&#39;m still going to be) - Slackware&#39;s installation _puked_ on me more than Fedora&#39;s did.

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## Merlock

Uh, not to be puking but I think it&#39;s obvious that judging an OS by its installation is...you get the picture.

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## Kaniaz

I was complaining about Mandriva&#39;s installation, Red Hat&#39;s installation was as exciting and wonderful as OS installations can be. Although actually I got Mandriva to eventually install and then it didn&#39;t like the wireless card, so I think I just gave up with it. It&#39;s a crap distribution. May Mandriva die in a gutter. I used both of them eventually to some degree, I just didn&#39;t feel like writing a fantastic detailed review and life of times of Linux on the spot right there, _y&#39;know?_

Slackware was a wonderful distro. I was on Slackware 9 and it&#39;s now on 11, so God knows what&#39;s changed. Same with Red Hat and Mandriva I suppose, but I&#39;m not really willing to subject myself to Chinese water torture again when the best I could get out of it is an _open source freedom-o-matic computer_ that, er, can&#39;t connect to the internet (Linux has fantastically crap dialup hardware support).

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## Tsen

Well, I just deleted my Windows partition, so I&#39;m now running 100% Ubuntu.  Just decided I didn&#39;t use the Windows boot option anymore, so I got rid of it to make space for all my music to be moved onto my harddrive.

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## Ynot

> Well, I just deleted my Windows partition, so I&#39;m now running 100% Ubuntu.  Just decided I didn&#39;t use the Windows boot option anymore, so I got rid of it to make space for all my music to be moved onto my harddrive.
> [/b]



I felt a great disturbance.  As if millions of DLL&#39;s cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

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## TweaK

Either way, I fucking love my Linux PC, but I would never ditch Windows for it.  ::D:

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## Tsen

Music > Windows

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## TweaK

Perhaps, perhaps. But that&#39;s what external hard drives are for.

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## Tsen

I&#39;ve got one.  250 Gig.  It&#39;s got backups of my music, but amaroK doesn&#39;t like having my library on an external harddrive as much.  Especially since the external is formatted in NTFS so I can&#39;t edit tags or delete duplicates.  Eventually I&#39;ll get around to switching the format.

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## MSG

Glad to hear it&#39;s all working out for you Tsen

I&#39;m surprised and also kind of Jealous because my year-long experience with Linux wasn&#39;t as smooth

As for NTFS... I&#39;m pretty sure there&#39;s ways to make it work fine in Linux, have you tried http://www.ubuntuguide.org ?

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## Kaniaz

I would recommend converting the filesystem from NTFS, unless you still need it available to access Windows at a snap. NTFS drivers for Linux are quite good (in fact very good) but ReiserFS or ext3 might be a better idea if you intend to make Linux your base for everything.

*EDIT:* AmaroK looks impressive. To the VPC&#33;

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## TweaK

Yeah, it&#39;s too bad the current PC with Linux in my room right now is going to be used as a server, I got kinda attached to it.  :Sad:

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## Tsen

Well, the thing is, I&#39;m a music pirate at heart, so I&#39;ve been using my external as a go-between to rip people&#39;s entire libraries at once.  So I kind of need the NTFS since most people run Windows, but at the same time it makes using it difficult in Linux.
So I&#39;m looking at some of those programs to make NTFS work a little better with Linux.  Thanks for the links, by the way--and yes, Kaniaz, amaroK is super awesome.  I lurve it.

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