I think we DESPERATLY need a grub/winXP newbie HowTo

[Robert Brimhall]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 21:55:01 +0100, Ben Edwards <funkytwig at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been hanging around the IRC channel a little bit as well as
> keeping an eye on the User List.  I am increasingly getting the idea
> doing a dual boot Ubuntu-WinXP install is a VERY bad idea.  I think it
> is something to do with the difference in which grub and windows
> addresses disk space - in lilo this was not a problem.
> 
> This is a real problem because a lot of windows users wanting who want
> to try Ubuntu will try this and lose access to there Windows
> partition.    this is something that needs addressing - The headline
> 'Ubuntu trashed my Windows machine' send chills up my spine.
> 
> This is not just a WinXP issue - someone at our local LUG wanted to
> try Ubuntu.  they previously had SusE and had real grub problems -
> they posted to the user list and did not get a reply.
> 
> A Newbie, who is not used to using mailing lists and IRC may well
> panic - swear and reinstall windows.
> 
> Indeed a lot of the grub / WinXP problems are not getting responses on
> the Mailing list - I am sending people to IRC but this is not ideal -
> for one thing the answers are not being archived.
> 
> So I think we need a WinXP & a grub howto/troubleshooting document for
> Newbees - and possibly a what to do if have problems installing dual
> boot.
> 
> Currently the wiki is being frozen while it is migrated to a new
> system.  I am not technical enough to write the document but if
> someone wanted to volunteer and send it to me I will make sure your
> work is not wasted (I am posting this to the user/ devl and docs list,
> those on the docs list obviously do not need to post it to me but it
> would be good if they could tell me if they are doing this).
> 

Isn't the grub problem really a kernel problem? Several 2.6 kernel
based distros suffer from disk-geometry problems... Fedora Core 2 for
example...  here's an article specific to FC2 but it probably applies
to Ubuntu (if this a kernel problem as I think)

http://lwn.net/Articles/86835/