[ubuntu-za] Switching to Linux (was Ubuntu Tea shirts)

[Hilton Gibson]

On Saturday 26 May 2007 21:26:18 pops at cairnsgames.co.za wrote:
> I wish I had a good story to tell about switching people to Linux, but
> unfortunately I have instead been faced with a few days of frusrtration.
>
> The problems have come with setting the dual boot. Easy, I tell everyone,
> just use the install disk (here is one for you) and when it asks you about
> disk partition, just give Ubuntu about 20 GB and you can play with it as
> much as you like.
>
> Well I was the first guinea pig myself. Ten days ago I got my new desktop
> and happily installed Feisty on top of Vista without a problem in the
> world. Everything was working like a dream - even Vista and even if a Vista
> dream is like a bad nightmare. But all was not rosy because the machine had
> an ASUS motherboard instead of the 965 that I had ordered. The supplier
> insisted on taking it back and replacing it.
Hi Bill

Sorry to hear about your dual-boot troubles. This might be the cause....
There is a problem with modern SATA drives being reliably detected. The web 
site that deals with this is: http://linux-ata.org. You will notice from the 
web site that SATA is an ongoing issue. This is normal in the open source 
world where "drivers" for hardware are first written for Microsoft and then 
normally reverse engineered for Linux.

Your installs should work great on IDE drives. Check out this link for 
programs to resize windows partitions safely;
http://www.ubuntu.sun.ac.za/wiki/index.php/ResizeWindowsPartition
But, always backup the clients data first ! This is a basic precaution.

Cheers

H.
> So here I have the new machine and I did exactly what I did last time. You
> know what I mean - when it comes time to partition the disk, the install
> program comes up with a little bar and you can move the cursor to give so
> much to Vista and so much to Feisty. Except that nice bar does not come up
> and I geta choice between using the whole hard disk for Feisty or doing a
> manual configuration. Well I try the manual configuration, but it seems
> that my installer does not see the Windows system at all - so I can I give
> it a partition if it aint there?
>
> Onto Ubuntu forums to be told that I can't use the installer with Vista and
> that I have to partition the disk using the Vista tool. I have trouble
> believing that (heck I did it myself not ten days ago) but all other
> research seems to confirm it. So I use the Vista configuration tool ... and
> it will not allow me to give Vista less than 73 GB. I only want Vista as
> very much a secondary engine for special programs and don't see why I
> should give it half of my valuable hard drive.
>
> Frustrations are not finished yet. Off I go to my son with my faithful
> install disk. He develops games for fun and wants to use Free Pascal on
> Linux for an extra platform. So we shove the disk into his XP machine and
> wait for the partition window to come up ... and it doesn't. So we watch
> the rugby instead and then he tries to partition the disk using other tools
> and I left him to it.
>
> Phone call from my boss. I had given him a Feisty disk to install. He says
> that the wiindow I told him about does not seem to come up.
>
> .I am still sure that I will have great success as an Ubuntu evangalist If
> I could only get the darn thing to work!
>
> I am sure that my problems are born out of ignorance. I do not understand
> disk partitions very well and am terrified of overwriting existing
> partitions (well it would not be too serious on this new machine of mine,
> but other people have a lot of time invested in their disks and I would
> hate to destroy that). The installer is just not very clear about what it
> is doing and I have to go very slowly and carefully.
>
> Bill



-- 
Hilton Gibson
Ubuntu System Administrator
Departement Elektriese en Elektroniese Ingenieurswese
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Universiteit Stellenbosch / Stellenbosch University
Privaat Sak/Private Bag X1 Matieland 7602 
Suid-Afrika/South Africa

Tel: +27 21 808 4989 | Cell: 084 646 4758
E-pos/E-mail: hgibson at sun.ac.za
Website: http://staff.ee.sun.ac.za/~hgibson
Maties Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.sun.ac.za