[ale] Setting up dual boot machine

[Preston Boyington]

Brian Pitts wrote:
> Preston Boyington wrote:
>> on a dual-boot machine with an existing Windows partition, i would grab 
>> a livecd and use it to resize the drive & create a new empty partition 
>> with all the free space i wanted for my linux os.  then i would install 
>> linux and use the included program to create whatever linux partitions i 
>> was going to use.
> 
> The downside to giving this advice to "newbies" is that it makes the
> installation more difficult. I'll compare it with Ubuntu since that's
> the only thing I've set up as dual-boot for some time.
> 
> 1) They have to download, burn, and boot a second livecd. This cd
> probably won't have a tool, like Ubuntu's does, that lets you boot it
> without changing your BIOS boot order.

it's been a very long time since i installed Ubuntu.  is ubuntu starting 
it's install from a browser window in Windows via some 'autorun' 
command?  i normally have to either press a button at startup to get a 
boot option screen or go into the BIOS to tell it a boot order. 
otherwise my machine(s) boot from the first hard drive.

i know of some distros that install inside of Windows, but they are 
basically in a virtual machine or some such emulation from a swap like 
file.  i don't think this is what you are implying.

> 
> 2) They have to understand a great deal of concepts related to disks,
> partitions, filesystems, and how to work with them from GParted. In the
> Ubuntu installer, they just have to drag a slider choosing how much
> space they want to use.

my GParted is GUI and i can use a slider to resize the partitions.  i 
was under the impression that most newer distros use a variant of 
GParted for their installers, is that not the case?

> 
> 3) They have to change the installer's behavior from the default
> (shrinking the existing partition and creating new ones afterwards) to
> use their newly created free space.
> If you have Windows taking up 100% of your disk, the Ubuntu installer
> will do the right thing. (Assuming your definition of the right thing is
> leaving a working windows installation.)

somewhere along the way there has to be a decision made as to how much 
space the new partition will take.  since i haven't dual-booted in quite 
a while, i can only guess that it will see the windows partition and how 
much space is free on that partition.  at that point does it take all 
the available space or does it let you decide how much space to take? 
my guess is you decide how much free space to use for the new partition.

>> it's probably extra (and maybe unnecessary) steps, but for me it comes 
>> down to being outside the workings of the disk while i am moving bits 
>> around.
> 
> This is where I don't follow you. The installation cd and program are
> "outside the workings of the disk". None of the partitions are mounted
> while they are bring rejiggered.
> 
this was more from a prep standpoint.  the scenario is i have a working 
Windows machine and i want to partition the disk to make way for 
whatever distro i will decide to install at a later time.  i would use a 
livecd to free the space instead of a program inside Windows.

the same goes for me freeing up space on an existing linux install. 
maybe i want to dual-boot another distro (some people do i guess).  i 
would use a livecd to change the sizes of my existing drive to make way.

i would wager that 80-90% of all modern distros have a simple install 
method.  i would even go so far to say that virtually any newbie can 
install linux with no problems (hardware issues aside) by just clicking 
the defaults.  heck, i might even test that theory with my 6 year old 
daughter.  afterward though, some people's needs change and they might 
need more space in 'this' partition as opposed to 'that' partition.  at 
this point i would suggest using the livecd with the GUI partition 
program to make those changes as opposed to opening a terminal and 
running a partition program as root.

the other piece of advice i give newbies is for them to have the means 
and understand how to restore their MBR in case they decide to blow away 
the linux install and fubar their bootloader.