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[DPRG] Fwd: OT - Linux Question
Subject: [DPRG] Fwd: OT - Linux Question
From: ed at okerson.com
ed at okerson.com
Date: Sun Apr 27 12:38:49 CDT 2008
Hey Jeff,
> I'd like to configure my PC to dual-boot with either Ubuntu Linux or
> Windows. I set a separate partition on the primary drive before I
> installed Windows XP.
>
> I've done this before, with both installs on the same hard drive. (I
> also did it, years ago, in a flakey way that involved two identical
> hard drives).
>
> The way I'd like to do it this time around is to have Windows and
> Ubuntu on the boot hard drive, then have all of my data on a separate
> hard drive. My thinking is that each operating system will be able to
> access the other hard drive.
>
> I have the second hard drive formatted NTFS presently. I don't know
> how stable Ubuntu is with NTFS.
>
> My questions are:
>
> 1. Does my plan make any sense?
If it makes sense to you. I genereally don't advocate dual boot systems,
but I also don't advocate the use of Windows at all, so take that with a
grain of salt. Dual boot systems are always more troublesome than single
OS machines.
> and
>
> 2. Would FAT32 formatting be better for a drive that will be
> read/written by Windows and Linux?
Historically, the FAT32 support in Linux has been much better and more
complete than NTFS, but according to http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php:
"[2007-09-29 00:55] The long awaited 2.0.0 release is finally here!
Highlights are that ntfsmount sports full read/write support, libntfs can
read encrypted files and ntfsresize as well as all other tools support
Windows Vista. Upgrade is strongly recommended."
So it might be worth trying now. FAT32 always had the issues of not
supporting Unix file permissions, so generally filesystems like ext3 were
better for use on Linux. Native filesystems like ext3 also provide other
features like journalling that Windows/DOS filesystems don't, so they are
more robust. An alternative might be to install Ubuntu on the box and run
windows in VMware, or use Wine:
http://www.winehq.org/
That way you don't have to reboot to use Windows apps. Another
alternative is to install Windows, and then install coLinux:
http://www.colinux.org/
Both of these alternatives eliminate messing with bootloaders, etc. but
have their own issues.
Ed Okerson
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