So, I’ve decided to dual boot Windows and Linux. As this is a somewhat scary-sounding process, I decided to come here for advice first.
First off, the main reason I’m trying Linux is because I need a program for printing sheet music, and there is nothing available for Windows yet that is in my price range ($0.00 - $0.00). Otherwise, Windows has worked fairly well for me.
After looking around, I’ve decided 64 Studio (variant of Debian) should be right for me. Plenty of audio, graphical, and video tools to suit me. However, If there is a better option you know of, please shout it out.
As I just put in a new hard drive, I figured this would be a great time to figure out the dual booting business. What I envision, or hope for, is to have Windows resting peacefully on the original first drive, have 64 Studio on the other drive, and having both of them be able to load images, videos, blends, sounds, ect. That way, I could work on a blend either in XP or 64 Studio. Right?
Now, other questions I have. As my first hard drive was just about full, I moved 40 gigs worth of videos to the new drive. Will that affect my install of 64 Studio at all? Should I put 64 Studio first on the second hard drive, or will it matter? Could anyone give me a good partitioning scheme?
I appreciate any help or advice anyone can give a lot. Thanks in advance.
Now, other questions I have. As my first hard drive was just about full, I moved 40 gigs worth of videos to the new drive. Will that affect my install of 64 Studio at all?
as long as you have about 10 gig free, there shouldent be a problem. the new os will be instaled on its own partiton, so you will need to resise the existing one. i dont know howw hard it is in 64 Studio becouse ive only used ubuntu. ubuntu is only slightly harder than windows
Hello
with windows partition tool make a new empty partition on the second HD ( at least 10 Gb, much more if you can
Then install Ubuntu
In the partition screen choose Manual/expert or the like
Choose the second HD ( sda2 probably (or hda2) and select the new empty partition to edit/modify
Create a new 6 Gb (or more if you’ve allowed much space)partition, etx3 filesystem, and label “/” (without quotes), the root one.
Then a new one the same amount of your memory, and choose the SWAP label
Then with the rest of your space, create a ext3 partition and name it “/home”
This will be your “user space”, this way you can install/reinstall many “linuxs” your data will remain untouched ( just verify that you don’t format this partition named probably sda7)
Then be careful to what partitions the installer will format ( only the new three probably, sda5 Swap and sda7, NOT sda1, your 40 gb)
Then go on, accept to install Grub in your first disk (hda1 or sda1) and so on…follow the guidelines
It’ll be quite easy
Bye
you can get a lot of ubuntu variants with it. And if you decide that Linux is not your cup of tea, then you simply go to the windows ADD/Remove programs, and simply uninstall it.
Check out distrowatch, they have a long list of distros, and there are a few that are geared to musicians and sound engineers .
Download the OS and stick it on a CD. Ubuntu will automatically boot up as a live cd, so you can try it out without messing with the hard drive. You can make any kind of change or add some programs to try, they just will be gone the next time you reboot. If you like it, you can click on the install icon. If not, no big deal; let someone else test out the live cd.
And remember livecds are many, many times slower than the installed system, because the entire os has to be either loaded into your ram or read of the cd, not to mention any programs you are running in it.
live CDs are great for installers, and for rescue disks, but are poor representations of the linux experience.
You will get a full install if you use WUBI.
The greatest thing with WUBI in my opinion is that it uses the windows bootloader rather than GRUB or LILO.
Hello again
sorry, I’ve made a little mistake
in the second HD your windows partition will be hdb1 ( or sdb1) and Linux ones sdb5, swap, sdb7?
Ubuntu will create desktop icons to directly access your first HD ( sda1) your windows partition on the second (sdb1)
By default windows don’t read Linux partitions
Bye
Thank you all for your help so far!
Last night I downloaded the 64 Studio ISO and burned it to a DVD. However, I’ll try WUBI first before actually installing 64 Studio, as it sounds less dangerous.
KJ3D: most modern linux distros will suit your digital needs just fine. I’ve heard ubuntu studio is a nice distro with a live kernel which allows hot-plugging many devices. Rigth now I’m dual booting windows xp/Xubuntu 64 and it’s working great. Ubuntu will detect your ntfs partitions and access them with no problems. It can even write on them, so sharing files and folders (assets) shouldn’t be a problem. In the opposite case (reading ext3 partitions from windows), get this nice little app, EXT2IFS: http://www.fs-driver.org/
It adds your linux partitions as drives in your file explorer, so you can also share assets with linux, from windows Just remember to format your partitions with the ext3 file system.
Well, I’m running Ubuntu Studio, installed by WUBI.
I’m impressed overall, I’ve had a few ‘how do I do that’ moments, but they have gotten sorted out pretty well. A couple of questions:
-The screen resolution changer only goes up to 1024 x 768. I’m used to running (and it is the optimal resolution) at 1280 x 1024 (or whatever it is). How to change?
-Also related, possibly. When I first loaded up, it came up with an error for my NVIDIA 6600GT driver. I couldn’t see any obvious way to make it work…but then I’m not very observant or knowledgable.
I hope these aren’t senseless noobie questions with the answer right under my nose. Although they probably are. Thanks again for helping out.
To get the res you want you must have the nvidia drivers installed. If they’r eproperly installed open a shell window and type:
sudo nvidia-settings
then you can change your resolution to 1280x1024 and tell it to save the changes to your xorg.conf file to make it permanent.
If you want to have the latest and greatest of the nvidia drivers download envy: http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html
int’s a nifty little script that detects your card and downlaods the best drivers ofr it, and then configures your xorg.conf automatically.
Just remember to format your partitions with the ext3 file system.