Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Please

[askrieger]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

The main thing to remember is that if you do a complete reinstall of everything is that you have to install windows first because windows will overwrite anything else on the disk. Linux, on the other hand, will respect the windows installation and will automatically set up dual booting.

You can install Grub almost anywhere, but I think it's an unneccesary complication. Because, Grub will accomodate Windows, I always let Grub install to the MBR. There are two things to make sure of after your install. Look at the file /boot/grub/menu.lst; make sure that the line "#hiddenmenu" is commented out (as I show it) otherwise you won't see the Grub menu and will have no opportunity to launch Windows; also make sure that the timeout is set to some value consistent with your reflexes. The default leaves you only 3 seconds to find your down arrow and click it at least once, if you don't want to launch the default OS (I reset that to 10).

[Major_Disaster]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Thanks for the reply.

Very helpfull... bit first i need to get this damn thing installed and running!

I dont see why im getting these problems. I have a RAID 1 setup (not unheard of) and am trying to use Linux that ive heard / thought was pretty easy to use. Ive even got the alternate cd that states

"Alternate install CD

The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Kubuntu. It provides for the following situations:

* setting up automated deployments;
* upgrading from older installations without network access;
* LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
* installing GRUB to a location other than the Master Boot Record;
* installs on systems with less than about 192MB of RAM. "

Should be perfect for me. So why oh why am i still having troubles....?

Please advise what i need to do to get this thing running!

Thanks for putting up with me!

[askrieger]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

I'm sorry to say that I haven't tried the Alternate Install CD. I installed Dapper on both my 686 laptop and my AMD64 desktop with the Desktop CDs. My main concerns were verifying that the new installer would not eat people's Windows partitions and that it worked the same on a Pentium and an Athlon.

I thought that the Alternate Install CD was just the old install CD, which was pretty much the same as the Debian Sarge installer. If that is the case, then you can go to www.debian.org and look for the Installation How-to. If I'm wrong about the Alternate Installer, you'll just waste some time, but it might give you more insight into the installation process.

[Major_Disaster]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

OK i had a look on that debian site and couldnt see much.

I think i might have found something here
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FakeRaidHowto

and might be getting close on the computershopper webiste.

Ill keep you informed.

Thanks for the help

[askrieger]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

I'm sorry, I should have reccommended that community help page to you. I missed the word Dell in your first post and thought you had a real hardware RAID setup.

[Major_Disaster]

Re: Help Newbie with XP Kubuntu GRUB Acronis OS Selector Dual Boot Problems Plea

Yeh i wish true hardware raid. Self build next time, but for the time being....

Thanks for the help