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Hardy Heron / Windows XP Graphical Installation 'A'

With the partitioning being done with the Ubuntu Installer's own partitioner, using 'guided partitioning' mode during the installation.

Last Edited: Thursday, May 29 2008

Ubuntu Hardy Heron LTS is the current version of Ubuntu which most people should now be using.

What's new in 8.04 | Ubuntu

This web page describes the quickest and easiest way to partition a hard disk for installing Ubuntu Hardy Heron 'dual boot' style with another operating system.

In this example, I started with Windows XP Professional, and I added Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
It would be okay to use the same partitioning method. 'Guided Partitioning', even if you had two Linux installations and you want then to have a swap area each. That would be useful if you like to use the 'hibernate' feature instead of shutting down or rebooting.

You should always make a backup of at least your most important files before using any hard disk partitioning software. Linux support for NTFS is very good now, and Ubuntu's partition handles NTFS as well as any other. It still might help if you have time to run CHKDSK /R on the file system from Windows beforehand. Defragging doesn't matter to the Desktop CD's partitioner though.

You may also optionally want to make a backup of the boot loader code area of your first hard disk's Master Boot Record too. This installation will upgrade your MBR to boot GNU-GRUB, the world's greatest boot loader.
Just in case the upgrade doesn't suit you or your computer (unlikely), here's a link about how to back up and restore your MBR (optional), MBR backup and restore.

I don't know anything about Macintosh computers or computers with RAID setups. If you want to install Ubuntu in a Mac or with RAID then please search for a special how-to for your particular requirements.

You may also want to take the precaution of downloading a copy of Super Grub Disk as well, just in case you have any problems booting at first after the installation. It's extremely rare to have booting problems if your computer only has one hard disk.
Occasionally, computers with more than one hard disk do have booting problems at first, especially if they have SATA and PATA hard disks mixed together in the same computer, or if they have PATA (IDE) disks and the jumper settings are all messed up. Boot problems are generally easily fixed, but you might need Super Grub Disk to help you boot your computer for a little while until you get the problem solved.

The Ubuntu 'Desktop' Live CD's graphical installation is easy enough to use, and there are already some good web pages and even some videos about it.
However, I wanted to show people how to do the actual partitioning part of the operation, most of the other installation sites seem to be skipping that, and that could be stopping some new users from installing Ubuntu.

This website features a very large collection of information about boot loaders too.

Actually, hard disk partitioning is quite simple now. These days we have Gnome Partition Editor so we can 'see' what we are doing, (or at least see a graphical representation of it).
This installation doesn't use Gnome Partition Editor to partition the hard disk though.
We will use the Ubuntu Hardy Heron Desktop Live CD Installer's built in partitioner this time.

The CD used for this installation was made from ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso,
herman@amd64:~$ md5sum ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
8895167a794c5d8dedcc312fc62f1f1f ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso

How to run an md5sum integrity test on your downloaded .iso file (before you burn it to disk).

Why integrity check your downloaded .iso?

Checking the integrity of your .iso in Ubuntu

Checking the integrity of your .iso from a Linux live CD

Checking the integrity of your .iso in Windows

The computer used for this demonstration is a standard 'run-of-the-mill' desktop PC.
The processor is an LEC brand, model PM266A, with an ASUS P4V533-MX main board, Intel Celeron 2.60 GHz CPU, and 487.3 MB of RAM.
It used to have Windows XP Home Edition in it until I deleted it and installed Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon instead.

I got this computer second hand. It was cheap because it wasn't working at all.

After I got it and figured out there was nothing apparently wrong with the hardware, deleting the faulty operating system and installing Ubuntu instead got rid of the main problem and fixed it quick.
Now it's going to be my Ubuntu demonstration computer and I'm going to keep it in my front room where anyone interested in Ubuntu can come and use it and try Ubuntu out in it.
There are more and more people interested in Ubuntu these days.

TIP for those with MODEST RAM: If your PC has around 256 MB of RAM, you can still use the Ubuntu Hardy Heron Live CD for installing with, but you will need to make a swap area on your hard disk first for the Ubuntu Live CD to use when it needs extra RAM.
You can download and use the GParted -- Live CD to partition your hard disk first, and then use the Ubuntu Hardy Heron 'Desktop' Live CD to install with.
The GParted Live CD will work in a computer with modest resources because it is based on a very light weight operating system and desktop, only designed for disc partitioning and one or two added programs.
After that you will find the Ubuntu Live CD will run alright, if not, you may need the Ubuntu 'Alternate' CD instead, that can install a minimal Ubuntu system in a PC with as little as 32 MB of RAM.

TIP for those with the NTFS file system in Windows: It might not be necessary, but wouldn't do any harm, to run CHKDSK /R on your Windows file system if it's not too inconvenient.
The idea is to clean up any existing errors that may exist in it before partitioning. I have found from practicing with my test computer that it does seem to help. There are no problems these days with resizing NTFS partitions or reading and writing to them from Linux, but if the partitioner detects file system errors it might refuse to partition your disk until the file system is fixed.
Defragging doesn't make any difference for GParted or to the Ubuntu 'Desktop' CD's partitioner.
You might also run CHKDSK again afterwards again too, just to be sure.

Okay, so we're going to install Ubuntu Hardy Heron after Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon now, and this means partitioning the hard disk to make room for Hardy.

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This is the first thing you see when the Ubuntu Hardy Heron Desktop Live CD boots up, a language selection screen.

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It's best to scroll down a couple of lines and run 'Check CD for defects' first before trying to use the CD for doing any work in your computer.
It is possible to corrupt your partition table if you try to use a dirty or corrupt CD. At least the installation might not be able to be completed or you may end up with a corrupted installation.

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It only takes a few minutes for the CD integrity test to finish. Then you will need to reboot.

On reboot, I chose 'Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer', to boot the Live CD.
I'll run the installation from there.

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The Ubuntu Live CD's Desktop.

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Figure 1 shows the hard disk with Windows XP Professional in one partition using up the whole disk.

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To begin the installation from the Desktop of the Live CD, I right-click on the white 'Install' icon and click 'Open'.

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Here's the language selection panel, it's already set to 'English' by default, so all I need to do is click 'Forward'.

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Hover your mouse over the new location selection map and it automatically zooms in, select your nearest city for time zone purposes and click on it.

The other way to select your city is to click on the 'Selected city' spinbox and scroll up and down the list to choose a city in your time zone.
For me it's 'Brisbane', even though I'm actually a very long way from there.
The important thing is it's in the time zone I'm in.

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Most of us use a US English type of keyboard, even in Australia, but if you do have a special type of keyboard you'll probably find it here somewhere.

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Yes, I'll use Guided partitioning this time. This is the easiest and fastest option, the Ubuntu installer will automatically install Ubuntu in a single integral '/' (root) partition plus a 'swap' area.
That's the best partitioning arrangement in my opinion, nice and simple.
A 'swap area' is a partition that Linux uses for a help to the computer's memory, something like a 'page file' in Windows.

The only decision the owner of the computer needs to make is how much space to leave for the old operating system. If you want to keep using the old operating system and you want to leave some space in it to store a few files then you should use your mouse to grab the slider between the old partition and the new partition and drag it to the right until you have the partitions proportioned the way you like.

If I selected the second option, 'Guided - use entire disk', I could have chosen to let the installer automatically have the second hard disc for Ubuntu.

If I selected 'Manual', it means I'll be able to control everything that happens, but it tkaes a little longer as there are more decisions to make.

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I grabbed the slider with my mouse and dragged it to the right until I have the two partitions proportioned the way I want them.

Then I clicked 'Forward'.

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I clicked 'Continue'.

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I waited.

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This panel asks me some easy questions.
I always make sure I choose a good secure password.

Here is a link to an easy way to choose a secure password that's easy to remember but hard to crack, password tip.

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Place a tick mark in the square if you want to import files and bookmarks and so on.
This is a really neat feature of the Ubuntu Desktop CD installer.
On this particular occasion I don't care about importing and documents and settings, so I'm leaving it blank to skip that. Most people should probably tick it though.

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Yes, that looks okay, I can confirm that by clicking 'Install', or if I'm not happy with something I can click 'Back', and fix any mistakes I might have made.

By default, the GNU/GRUB boot loader's stage1 and stage1_5 will be installed to MBR and the first track of whichever hard disk Ubuntu thinks is my computer's first hard disk.
Stage2 of GRUB will be installed in the Ubuntu partition.
Ubuntu will automatically scan my hard disks for other operating systems and add them to the boot loader's menu so I'll be able to boot any of my operating systems when I reboot without any manual configuring needed, it works perfectly in 999/1000 computers.
Sometimes we might need to do some fiddling to get things right, but it's normally pretty simple.

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If you click the 'advanced' button you get to choose whether or not to install a boot loader and if so, where to install it.

Boot Loader
I haven't tested these options yet.
I pressed 'Cancel' to skip this, I just brought the up for your information.
In my opinion the best thing to do is the default, install GRUB to MBR in the first hard disk.

Some people might want to try installing GRUB's stage1 to MBR in a non-first hard disk with the optional stage1_5 files in the first track of the hard disk.
To make it easier there's a drop-down menu if you click the down arrow button beside the text box.
You can click on a suggestion there, or you can type something on the line yourself.
To install GRUB's stage1 and stage1_5 files to a non-first hard disk's MBR, you would type something here like (hd1) for second hard disk or (hd2) for third hard disk and so on, or (fd0) for floppy disk maybe.

Others might want to install GRUB's stage1 to a partition. In this case GRUB's stage1_5 file will not be installed.
To install GRUB's stage1 to the boot sector of a partition, you would type here something like (hd0,1), for first hard disk, second partition, or (hd0,2), for first hard diks, third partition and so on.

GRUB's stage2 files and menu.lst are always installed in Ubuntu's /boot/grub/

For a more complete list look here, Quick Guide to GRUB's Numbering System.

If you chose not to install a boot loader, (not recommended), you would need boot with some other boot loader or boot manager like Super Grub Disk or else with EasyBCD maybe.

Popularity Contest
(No, not for you, for the software). This is optional, it's just to let the developers know what software you will install later on so they can see what's popular and decide what's the most important to work on and learn how to make Ubuntu better next time.

Network Proxy _ (Sorry, I don't know much about this option, those who need to use it will know what to do here probably).

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All finished, before the computer rebooted it spat out the Ubuntu Hardy Heron CD.

Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu 8.04, memtest86+
Other operating systems:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Use the | and | keys to select which entry is highlighted.
Press enter to boot the selected OS, or 'e' to edit the
commands before booting, or 'c' for a command-line.

The highlighted entry will be booted in 10 seconds.

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This is the GNU/GRUB boot screen where we choose which operating system want to boot .

GRUB is fully customizable and you can have fun learning about GRUB, for more info on the GNU/GRUB boot loader, click this link, GRUB Page .

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This is the login screen where you need to type in your username and password.

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This is what my new Hardy Heron Desktop looks like.

The installation is over now.

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Here's how the partitioning turned out.
Ubuntu was installed in a logical partition, and has a swap area of about 1.0 GB.
There are still a lot of things to do to make Ubuntu work the way I want it to.

It's a good idea to open up our repositories and get an update, install the software we want, and start configuring, personalizing and customizing our Ubuntu installations.
Here's a link to a page with some information to get you started, Post-install Page.

If you used this installation as a guide to set up a Hardy Heron/Windows dual boot, you probably won't need to do anything with the boot loader, GRUB should be automatically set up to chainload Windows for you.

If you used this installation as a guide for setting up a Ubuntu/Ubuntu or Ubuntu/other Linux dual boot, your /boot/grub/menu.lst file will probably be set up with a 'direct kernel boot' for the other Linux operating system.
I recommend you amend that and change it to a chainloader or a config file boot command so that both Linux operating systems can update their kernels without the GRUB menu needing to be manually updated. Please read the following link, Operating System Entries for Multiple Booting More Linux Systems.

Here's a link to a very important new website, UbuntuHCL.org
That's the new Ubuntu Linux Hardware Compatibility Site.

No longer do we need to risk bringing our new hardware home after a trip to the computer store with our hard-earned cash only to find that the new hardware we bought isn't usable with Linux.

Help your fellow Ubuntu users by entering details of hardware that you own that you know does work well with Ubuntu so others will know what to look for when we go shopping for new computer parts.

Look in UbuntuHCL.org first to see what other Ubuntu users had to say about a computer hardware item you are considering before you go ahead with a purchase.

That's all for this page. I hope you enjoyed it.