Dual booting.

[NARAKU_KAT]

Hello guys, i still have Windows Xp for basic training for my mom and also to go "safe" and play Halo CE lol, but recently, as Xp has no longer any support i've been playing around with lightweight linux distros, my fav so far is Debian 7.5, tried to install that on a separate small partition, but something called Grub (just found out it's a boot loader) failed to install and "Lilo" did the same, i'm pretty new to Linux, want to learn it 'cause it seems to be a lot better and flexible than windows (not to mentition MacOS) but just until you know how to use it properly.

 

So, i'm very lost at this point, failed to install 3 times (always the same trouble) and also couldn't even run the live version of Lubuntu or Xubuntu (i wanted to try them so badly....) because of some issue with my processor (pae), then i basically want to make a dual boot system with WinXp and a Linux distro (Debian or Lubuntu) but i have a lot of doubts about the actual process of booting, well, if someone could clear the things a little bit that would be great, because i don't think i'm so far to reach it, but just need some advice on how to do it.

 

1.- About Debian's issues i don't have any idea of what's going on.

 

2.- About the dual booting, i kinda understand there might be some "file" or "program" that actually manages the booting  options, i've seen tutorials on youtube, but most of the people just go along and barely explain what they're doing, and never WHY they are doing so, also many of those cut some important parts during the restart or recordered it with a crappy camera phone that doesn't show the important things.

 

My specs:

Intel Pentium (m) "Centrino" 1.4 Ghz

512Mb RAM

40Gb HDD

Mobility Radeon 9000

 

Thanks in advance.

[NARAKU_KAT]

Wow, 0 views, that's a a shit!

[Stijn Janssens]

you could burn yourself a live cd or make a bootable usb drive, then change the bootlocation to that usb port or your dvd drive.

boot into linux and you will find yourself (first wait a bit to give it some time to set up) on a desktop

somewhere on that desktop you will find a "shortcut" called install linux <YourLinuxVersionHere> double click on that and do the setup.

there should be an option to install it on a diffrent partition, but I recommend you'd look that up first and esp. how you want to divide it

 

finally, I use Win7 and Linux Mint 17 (Qiana) - dualboot of course - and I haven't run into trouble (yet). I can really recommand using Mint (Cinnamon), but you'll have to make that up yourself.

 

Good luck!

[max1220]

Can you tell me where exactly Grub fails? Does the Installation Fail, or the Booting after the Install? Ubuntu Versions newer than 12.04.4 don't support PC's without PAE.

If the Setup fails, you can view the Install log on one of the VT. Just press [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F4] (If F4 dons't work, try F2, F3, F5, etc), and post the relevant parts of the Log here. You can go back to the Installer with [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1].

 

Using Ubuntu 12.04 isn't a bad option either, it works great. I like the LXDE flavored version, Lubuntu.

Mint seems to be great as well, but it seems to use a PAE kernel as well, since mint 13...

[ManWithBeard1990]

If GRUB installation fails, often it means you're trying to install it somewhere it isn't supposed to go. Your safest bet (back up your existing Windows OS first) is to let the installer on a live USB or DVD sort the partitions out for you, but if you want to have more control over it, this is what you should do (in Kubuntu installer. I guess Ubuntu and Debian are probably similar): Select manual partitioning. You must shrink your Windows partition, next make a new partition with an appropriate filesystem for Debian (NTFS of FAT will not work because it doesn't support file permissions, which unix needs for an OS drive). I suggest you use ext4 for that if you're new to Linux. You must also specify that its mount point is "/". Next make a partition for GRUB, the bootloader. This needn't be very big. About a gigabyte should suffice. Also select ext4 for the same reason, but set the mount point to "/boot". If the installer asks you where to install the bootloader, select the appropriate partition. The rest of the install should be self-explanatory.

[NARAKU_KAT]

Can you tell me where exactly Grub fails? Does the Installation Fail, or the Booting after the Install? Ubuntu Versions newer than 12.04.4 don't support PC's without PAE.

If the Setup fails, you can view the Install log on one of the VT. Just press [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F4] (If F4 dons't work, try F2, F3, F5, etc), and post the relevant parts of the Log here. You can go back to the Installer with [CTRL]+[ALT]+[F1].

 

Using Ubuntu 12.04 isn't a bad option either, it works great. I like the LXDE flavored version, Lubuntu.

Mint seems to be great as well, but it seems to use a PAE kernel as well, since mint 13...

 

It's the installation what fails, also the LILO thing fails too, don't know if i'm meant to choose either Grub or LILO or they both will install.

Yes my CPU doesn't support PAE.

 

If GRUB installation fails, often it means you're trying to install it somewhere it isn't supposed to go. Your safest bet (back up your existing Windows OS first) is to let the installer on a live USB or DVD sort the partitions out for you, but if you want to have more control over it, this is what you should do (in Kubuntu installer. I guess Ubuntu and Debian are probably similar): Select manual partitioning. You must shrink your Windows partition, next make a new partition with an appropriate filesystem for Debian (NTFS of FAT will not work because it doesn't support file permissions, which unix needs for an OS drive). I suggest you use ext4 for that if you're new to Linux. You must also specify that its mount point is "/". Next make a partition for GRUB, the bootloader. This needn't be very big. About a gigabyte should suffice. Also select ext4 for the same reason, but set the mount point to "/boot". If the installer asks you where to install the bootloader, select the appropriate partition. The rest of the install should be self-explanatory.

 

I'll try that too, so, basically i'll create a "big" partition for the actual Linux OS, and then one 1Gb long for the bootloader, and after installing i'll be able to select wich OS i want to run?

[ManWithBeard1990]

I'll try that too, so, basically i'll create a "big" partition for the actual Linux OS, and then one 1Gb long for the bootloader, and after installing i'll be able to select wich OS i want to run?

Yes. Every time you start up your pc and, possibly, also when you wake it up from hibernation GRUB will ask which OS you want to boot. But also, in the installer there might be a drop down menu for where the bootloader should go. Make sure you select the right partition in that as well or the installation will probably fail again.

[max1220]

FYI: Grub and LiLo are both Boot loaders. A bootloader is a Software, that, after you turn on our PC, gets loaded first from the HDD. It's responsible to load some basic parts into the RAM, and start it. The "normal" Windows bootloader stays hidden, you don't see it usually. Grub or LiLo is the Linux counterpart. If you install your PC with only Linux, they stay hidden as well. But if you have Windows still on a separate Partition, Grub or LiLo, when started, so after the BIOS, give you the Option to boot either Windows or Linux.

 

I don't really see the point in creating a separate partition, this isn't UEFI

 

If you could post the Log of the Installer, we might know more, and might be able to help solve your problem.

 

(Grub/Grub2: Grand Unified Bootloader)

(LiLo: Linux Loader)

In modern systems, you actually don't use Grub anymore, it's Grub2 what you're using. The Old Grun is usually called Grub-legacy. LiLo is more a failsafe, and way less Flexible than Grub.

[NARAKU_KAT]

FYI: Grub and LiLo are both Boot loaders. A bootloader is a Software, that, after you turn on our PC, gets loaded first from the HDD. It's responsible to load some basic parts into the RAM, and start it. The "normal" Windows bootloader stays hidden, you don't see it usually. Grub or LiLo is the Linux counterpart. If you install your PC with only Linux, they stay hidden as well. But if you have Windows still on a separate Partition, Grub or LiLo, when started, so after the BIOS, give you the Option to boot either Windows or Linux.

 

I don't really see the point in creating a separate partition, this isn't UEFI

 

If you could post the Log of the Installer, we might know more, and might be able to help solve your problem.

 

(Grub/Grub2: Grand Unified Bootloader)

(LiLo: Linux Loader)

In modern systems, you actually don't use Grub anymore, it's Grub2 what you're using. The Old Grun is usually called Grub-legacy. LiLo is more a failsafe, and way less Flexible than Grub.

Thanks a lot for all the advices, i'll try Debian for a while to see if it runs better, anyway thanks to y'all, thought no one wold even reply  to this Lol.