I'm stuck in Ubuntu !

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MichaelM

Guru
Location
Tayside
I've just installed Ubuntu (11.10) alongside Windows XP as a dual boot system. System shows that my hard drive in Linux is about half the size of the hard drive - as you'd expect for a partitioned drive.

On boot up, my pc is loading straight into Linux - not a problem in itself, but I'd like to have the opportunity to choose Windows should I wish.

Can I "slow things down" to give myself the choice? I'm fine with Linux as the default, but want to have the option.

Michael
 
Its a long time since i configured a system to offer the user the choice of booting into linux or windows.
I can't remember the details, but i think you just need to modifiy a batch file so it asks a question on the bootup
screen (such as press 1 for linux or 2 for windows).
Google "dual boot windows linux choice" to see if theres any help around.


As far as i'm concerned linux belongs on a ram stick.
The reason ... i only use my linux stick when i want to get on the internet and the pc i'm trying to use is playing silly buggers.
Its so nice to ram this thing up its a%$e and it just .... works.;)
(Assuming bios is configured to check usb before a: and c: on bootup).
 

Yellow Fang

Legendary Member
Location
Reading
I think you have to edit a file called grub.cfg in the boot folder.In my grub.cfg file there's a section just before a line that reads:

### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

that goes:

if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi

You may have to get into supervisor mode before you can edit this file.
 
OP
OP
M

MichaelM

Guru
Location
Tayside
I think you have to edit a file called grub.cfg in the boot folder.In my grub.cfg file there's a section just before a line that reads:

### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

that goes:

if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi

You may have to get into supervisor mode before you can edit this file.




Mine is the same:

if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then
set timeout=-1
else
set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
 
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MichaelM

Guru
Location
Tayside
 

sunnyjim

Senior Member
Location
Edinburgh
Grub can be a pain. If you move HDs around it gets very confused & sulks. I've had several dual boot machines & eventually found the easiest solution is to put Linux on a second HD, and just change the boot disk priority in the BIOS on startup to switch to windows. Also makes it easy to upgrade/ try any new Linux versions as you can just use the entire disk (after copying data) without worrying about deleting old partitions (which grub has problems with). Only works for a desktop, obviously.
If you've got enough RAM to share between multipe Oss, an even better solution is to use VMplayer (free) or similar. That way you can use both OSs at once, and move files between them easily. Right now I'm on native Windows 7 machine running virtual Ubuntu and XP simultaneously. Also have Ubuntu with virtual Win2000, and OpenSuse with virtual XP. You can have the best of both worlds. Only downside is that the VMplayer VMs sometimes have problems with USB drive allocation apart from basic file access.
 
Location
Salford
Ubuntu 11.10 is Grub2... All those old GRUB1 config files are still around but take care if you're editing them and running update-grub... Do some reading here.

To show the boot menu press SHIFT while the computer is starting, after the POST screen or splash screen, i.e. while the BIOS is loading.

In the above linked wiki you will learn how to change the menu timeout (which is 0 seconds at the moment) but no need if you find that the holding-SHIFT method is acceptable.
 
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OP
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MichaelM

Guru
Location
Tayside
Ubuntu 11.10 is Grub2... All those old GRUB1 config files are still around but take care if you're editing them and running update-grub... Do some reading here.

To show the boot menu press SHIFT while the computer is starting, after the POST screen or splash screen, i.e. while the BIOS is loading.

In the above linked wiki you will learn how to change the menu timeout (which is 0 seconds at the moment) but no need if you find that the holding-SHIFT method is acceptable.

It wasn't the timeout that was the problem - GRUB was set to different screen resolution than Ubuntu. SO though it did come up and count for 10 sec, I couldn't see it. Resolved torugh using "Startup Manager".

Thanks for the link, hopefully I'll get around to reading it sometime - getting used to the desktop/file system and reading through the official documentation for now.

Thanks.

Michael
 
Location
Salford
Result

startupmanager doesn't work quite as well as promised with Grub2; nice to know that screen-res is one option that does work. I found the SHIFT method worked regardless of the resolution.
 
OP
OP
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MichaelM

Guru
Location
Tayside
Grub can be a pain. If you move HDs around it gets very confused & sulks. I've had several dual boot machines & eventually found the easiest solution is to put Linux on a second HD, and just change the boot disk priority in the BIOS on startup to switch to windows. Also makes it easy to upgrade/ try any new Linux versions as you can just use the entire disk (after copying data) without worrying about deleting old partitions (which grub has problems with). Only works for a desktop, obviously.
If you've got enough RAM to share between multipe Oss, an even better solution is to use VMplayer (free) or similar. That way you can use both OSs at once, and move files between them easily. Right now I'm on native Windows 7 machine running virtual Ubuntu and XP simultaneously. Also have Ubuntu with virtual Win2000, and OpenSuse with virtual XP. You can have the best of both worlds. Only downside is that the VMplayer VMs sometimes have problems with USB drive allocation apart from basic file access.

This sounds interesting.

Not sure my pc is powerful enough though - Athlon 64 4200+ and just 1G of RAM (seemed like a lot when I bought the PC.
 
Location
Salford
If it's the moving of files between operating systems that you're finding interesting, you should have no problem mounting NTFS partitions in Ubuntu and just doing drag and drop (Ubuntu should have done it automagically I would have thought). You can also mount EXTx partitions in Windows but you'll need to buy some software, probably.

If it's virtual machines you want to play with, you could try VirtualBox within Ubuntu and install Windows within that. I cannot think of a single reason, other than "just for the hell of it" that a home user would want to mess with VirtualMachines unless you're a homebrew developer who wants to run emulators but develop in Linux.
 
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