DPRG mailing list archives: [DPRG] Fwd: OT

Mon Apr 28 10:25:34 CDT 2008

Hi Jeff,

To answer your first question, yes your plan makes sense and many people
have done it successfully... in general you will want to install the
Windows first and then the Linux (since Microsoft does not typically
play nicely with multiple OSes)

To answer your second question, from first hand experience you will have
a much easier time with FAT32 if you plan on moving lots of files back
and forth between the two environments... NTFS has always had "issues"
with writing from Linux (this is not just a Ubuntu thing but flaky NTFS
driver support within the Linux kernel)... 

Now, all that being said and without knowing "why" you want the
duel-boot windows/linux system, you may want to also explore
virtualizing a Linux instance from within Windows environment (or your
Windows inside your Linux)... 

VMWare has a free player that will allow you to do this and there are
some other projects out there that accomplish similar environments...
I've been playing with "andLinux" and while I don't have much need for
it myself, it is pretty neat and would be useful to some people... 

With this type of setup, you would have your Windows and Linux running
at the same time, on the same machine... you could then Samba/NFS mount
your Windows filesystem into your Linux and vice-versa...

If all you are looking to do is explore Linux type commands, there are
also free WIN32 Linux-like environments like Cygwin
http://www.cygwin.com/

I am a Linux/Unix system admin and I have used all of these solutions
personally and professionally...

Hope this helps,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: dprglist-bounces at dprg.org [mailto:dprglist-bounces at dprg.org] On
Behalf Of Jeff Koenig
Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 11:08 AM
To: DPRG
Subject: [DPRG] Fwd: OT - Linux Question

Oops, I hit "send" accidentally.

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?

and

2. Would FAT32 formatting be better for a drive that will be
read/written by Windows and Linux?

Thanks,
Jeff
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