[ubuntu-uk] creation of a dual boot desktop from scratch

[Adam Bagnall]

rosemurgy at googlemail.com wrote:
> A few months ago my desktop pc died and I replaced it with a cheap
> laptop (windows XP) and even cheaper desktop (no OS installed). I
> replaced the OS on the laptop with ubuntu 6.10 and it's been great. So
> much so that I never got around to doing anything with the desktop at
> all.
>
> So now I'd like to put ubuntu onto the desktop and give it to my mum.
> She's a complete computing novice but as I'm going to be helping her &
> I think she'd be better off learning to use ubuntu than windows. I'd
> like to also install XP 'just in case'.
>
> I thought I'd install XP first (the online tutorials I've found seem
> to assume that windows is installed before creating a dual build
> machine - which is logical enough as so many are sold with it
> pre-installed) and create partions on the single hdd as follows:
> an ntfs partion (for XP)
> a system partion for ubuntu
> a swap partion for ubuntu
> a small fat32 'shared partion' in case I want to move any files between.
>
> If anyone can see a flaw with this thinking or has some other advice
> it would be much appreciated.
>
> Fi
>
>   
In Feisty and later you can get away without the fat32 partition. If you 
install the ntfs-config package it lets you enable write support for 
ntfs partitions. Although this functionality was available in earlier 
releases of Ubuntu it wasnt made as easy to use because it wasn't yet 
stable, however now it is perfectly fine.