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Ok. So I booted Ubuntu on my laptop. (I'm on my dads computer).
It worked well. Only thing is, I'm trying to set it up. What option do I choose to make it so I still have my WinXP OS on the system? Theres an option to erase everything (which I don't want to do), an option for Use largest available free space, and a manual option. I was thinking the second option, but I wanted to ask you guys first because I don't want to mess anything up. xD
Use the manual option. Specify enough space between the two OSes. Most people like a seperate partition for /home, but I just stick everything (except /swap of course) in /.
Ok I clicked on that. There is a list of 4 things.
fat16
ntfs
fat32
unallocated
Do I click on Unallocated?
Well if you have enough space in unallocated then yes, but you're probably going to have to split one of your exisiting Windows partitions into another partition in order to have space to accomodate the OS. I've never used the Ubuntu install tool to do this (I use Partition Magic in Windows beforehand and then just specify the different folders to those partitions once I'm installing Ubuntu).
Just make sure you have everything you need backed up from your Windows install just in case it messes up the partition tables.
How do I split the partitions?
There's no option to do that through the installer? You could always use fdisk.
There's a Resize/Move option.
That's it.
Alright. I tried using it, but I'm somewhat confused. I'm sorry for being annoying but I'm new at this OS and stuff. XD
A box pops up with:
Free Space Preceding (MB): 0
New Size: 34(something)
Free Space Following (MB): 0
I tried entering a new size, but when I clicked next it didn't work and I got an error.
Which partition are you resizing? The unallocated space Windows leaves after an install is small. Resize the existing Windows partition.
Yeah, I tried resizing the Windows one. (ntfs, right?) I took like 6 GB off it. It didn't work for some reason.
Alright, nevermind. I screwed something up and XP went bye-bye. I can't say I care, I need to start fresh. I'm just going to use Linux. Thanks for all your help though guys, it really means a lot to me. :D
When installing Ubuntu, I found that the partition utility in the installer didn't work as it was supposed to. I just used fdisk with the live CD, which is the most powerful, and easiest to use.
Beware of Partition Magic; on more than one occasion it has messed everything up, and I have lost copious amounts of data because of it.
Also, being a laptop, Ubuntu may not support your native display resolution out of the box; if you're using 1280x800 (widescreen), then you may need to add the relevant information into your xorg.conf file.