Windows Vista & Windows XP

[Thejaswi]

Hi all,

       I am trying to install Linux on my laptop which has Vista installed on it. I am not able to do the partion at all. Can any one help me in this please?

Best Regards

thejaswi

[Rick_Roehrig]

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Thejaswi wrote:

Hi all,

       I am trying to install Linux on my laptop which has Vista installed on it. I am not able to do the partion at all. Can any one help me in this please?

Best Regards

thejaswi

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I'd suggest asking over at the CompuServe Linux Forum:

http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?webtag=ws-linuxforum

[tanstaafl]

If U're trying to save the Vista partition, good luck; unmoveable files are often at the end of the partition.  I believe there are some commercial programs that can handle them, though, such as PartitionMagic from Symantec, because they use deep internal knowledge of the system.  There may be some open-source packages out there that can play with NTFS; FIPS is one open-source package that can re-partition FATx partitions, but I don't think it works on NTFS.

Your best bet may be to get another hard disk for the system and use the whole thing for Linux, swapping back and forth between the disks.  Another possibility is to run off a live CD such as Knoppix (based on Debian) or PCLinuxOS (based on Fedora).  Knoppix can boot from CD and run from an image stored in a file in a separate partition on another disk, but when the other disk is a USB drive, the kernel may crash when shutting down (I don't remember the details; maybe USB being shut down before shutdown was complete?).  Or U can avoid the whole problem by dumping Vista and using Linux instead; just remember that x86-64 Linux doesn't always have proprietary applications like Flash yet, which may hamper your web-browsing experience (doesn't hurt your programming, though!).

Keep us posted!

[Thejaswi]

Thx Rick..
I can remove the Vista and get only Linux but i am worried if my warranty on the laptop gets affected.
Please guide me on this.

[Rick_Roehrig]

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Thejaswi wrote:
Thx Rick..
I can remove the Vista and get only Linux but i am worried if my warranty on the laptop gets affected.
Please guide me on this.

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Installing a different operating system will not affect the hardware warranty, but if you call with a suspected problem, expect that the first step you will have to take is to restore Vista.

So, it is important that you preserve either the recovery partition, have a set of recovery disks or have an image backup of the drive that can be restored.

It might be a good idea to put a new hard drive in before loading Linux, that way you always will have the old one, just in case, as Tanstaafl suggests.

Message Edited by Rick_Roehrig on 01-19-2009 12:48 PM

[carid]

Here is a site with an instruction you might useful.

http://www.linlap.com/wiki/toshiba+satellite+m300d-m305d

carid

[Rick_Roehrig]

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Thejaswi wrote:
Thx Rick..
I can remove the Vista and get only Linux but i am worried if my warranty on the laptop gets affected.
Please guide me on this.

---

I just came across these links, which you may find useful:

Living free with Linux: 2 weeks without Windows

Wubi - Ubuntu installer for Windows

Wubi arrives

Use Wubi to install Ubuntu without partitioning 

The gist of the articles is that it is possible to install Ubuntu Linux from within Windows, without partitioning or using another bootloader.

[Thejaswi]

Thx i will look at this this week end

[brons2]

The gpartd utility in the Ubuntu installation can re-size your Vista partition.  It will do it automatically for you if you let it. however, make sure that it leaves enough space for Vista.  The Ubuntu installer will also set up GRUB, a dual boot utility that will allow you to choose between Linux and Windows each time you boot up your computer. 

Also, the ubuntu forums are excellent for help with Ubunutu. 

http://ubuntuforums.org/

Ask away in the "Absolute Beginner" forum.