Operating systems that do not suck. Are there any?

[sgreger1]

Shit I think so man. I went ot the link badlads gave me here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/

Then I chose the second link "64-bit PC (AMD64) Desktop CD" since I have an AMD 64 x2 processor on my laptop.

It was just short of fitting on the CD though. I don't know is there another link to a version we know leads toa file that can fit ona CD?

That should work on a CD. AFAIK none of the Ubuntu variations are bigger than a CD. You could check the MD5 to make sure it didn't get corrupted during download.

I don't think it was corrupted during download because I did manage to load it via USB flash drive, but once in Ubuntu, nothign works and I keep getting an error if I try to use any of the applications.


I think when my computer formatted the disk it took up space for formatting. The file size is 690mb I think and the formatting took up just enough to where it was short by 30kb. I just cant figureout why it won't load onto a CD.

[shikitohno]

What do you mean when your computer formatted the disk? You should just download the iso to your desktop/wherever you put files by default. Burn it to CD, and reboot. Formatting won't change the size of anything. And UNetbootin is an application to install Linux...Ah, I think I just figured it out. You are using Unetbootin and you formatted the partition that had Windows on it, right? That's what's causing problems.

UNetbootin isn't actually installing Linux on your computer fully. If you're familiar with emulators, you could say it's sort of like a Linux emulator. It installs everything you need to "fake" having Ubuntu installed on your computer, but it gets put on the Windows partition. It's mostly intended for those who just want to try it, or who don't want to lose their Windows data. Because it's installed on the Windows partition, if you format the disk, it wipes all the data you need for Ubuntu. If that's your problem, download another copy of the iso on your MacBook, and burn it. To make sure it's not corrupted, you could use this to check it. You need to use a bit torrent client, like vuze or µtorrent, but it will automatically check the MD5 sum file to make sure you have gotten it corrupted before it finishes downloading. Then, pop that in the optical drive on your laptop, and install it.

If that's what you did, this should fix it for you. Let me know if you did something else. When you Ubuntu's loading and you see the command prompt, just let it be. Typing help or any other commands will slow it down, because it's running the installer/OS entirely off the CD, so it can only be as fast as the max read speed on your optical drive.

If you still need help going through the install once you're ready, shoot me an IM, I shouldn't be doing anything for a few hours.

[sgreger1]

What do you mean when your computer formatted the disk? You should just download the iso to your desktop/wherever you put files by default. Burn it to CD, and reboot. Formatting won't change the size of anything. And UNetbootin is an application to install Linux...Ah, I think I just figured it out. You are using Unetbootin and you formatted the partition that had Windows on it, right? That's what's causing problems.

UNetbootin isn't actually installing Linux on your computer fully. If you're familiar with emulators, you could say it's sort of like a Linux emulator. It installs everything you need to "fake" having Ubuntu installed on your computer, but it gets put on the Windows partition. It's mostly intended for those who just want to try it, or who don't want to lose their Windows data. Because it's installed on the Windows partition, if you format the disk, it wipes all the data you need for Ubuntu. If that's your problem, download another copy of the iso on your MacBook, and burn it. To make sure it's not corrupted, you could use this to check it. You need to use a bit torrent client, like vuze or µtorrent, but it will automatically check the MD5 sum file to make sure you have gotten it corrupted before it finishes downloading. Then, pop that in the optical drive on your laptop, and install it.

If that's what you did, this should fix it for you. Let me know if you did something else. When you Ubuntu's loading and you see the command prompt, just let it be. Typing help or any other commands will slow it down, because it's running the installer/OS entirely off the CD, so it can only be as fast as the max read speed on your optical drive.

If you still need help going through the install once you're ready, shoot me an IM, I shouldn't be doing anything for a few hours.

Holy shit, that makes so much more sense.

Here's the deal. I orriginally wanted to delete windows, wipe drive, isntall Ubuntu. I then realized that Bestbuy does not sell removable hard drives in less than $250 GB, and I don't feel like paying 80$ right now.

It turns out that all my daughters videos and the tape of her being born are on my laptop, therefore very important. It's only about 10 gigs of video but not something I can fit on my removable USB disks.


Is there any way to undo whatever I did wrong, then install Ubuntu on a different partition, so that I may choose to boot between Ubuntu/Windows and not lose all of my videos?

I only have about 50 gigs out of 160 gigs left on my hard drive, not sure if that is enough to run two operating systems.


Thanks for all your help man.

[shikitohno]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but once you've formatted a drive, it's essentially gone. Someone mentioned a google tool in either this thread or another, I'll try to find it, but it's sort of a toss of the dice whether it's going to work. For now, don't do anything with the computer, as it'll only make it more difficult if the data can be recovered.

50 gigs is plenty of space to run Linux in, so long as you don't plan on downloading a bunch of movies or other large files. What does your computer do when you try to boot it up now, without the Ubuntu thumbdrive attached?

Okay, this will potentially let you get it, not sure as I haven't used it before. You would need to download it on the mac and burn it to a CD. Boot with it in the CD and run the program. If it can get it, you're going to need to format your flash drive, unless you have another, back up some of the data on to that, transfer it to your Mac, and repeat as necessary. If you have another Windows computer, I'd recommend using that to format the flash drive/transfer to, as you could see compatibility issues between NTFS and the Mac filesystem, which I'm unfamiliar with.

There's a pretty good chance it's gone though. This program's really just intended for things you've deleted, and you formatted the whole thing. Not sure it will work at all.

[sgreger1]

Oddly enough when i boot up it goes back t widows if Idon't chse F12 and boot from usb. All of my content is still here (luckly)

My goal is to somehow keep windows, my files and ubuntu on the same computer untill I get a removable hard drive.

Or, do you know a good place to back up videos on-line?

[lxskllr]

What do you mean when your computer formatted the disk? You should just download the iso to your desktop/wherever you put files by default. Burn it to CD, and reboot. Formatting won't change the size of anything. And UNetbootin is an application to install Linux...Ah, I think I just figured it out. You are using Unetbootin and you formatted the partition that had Windows on it, right? That's what's causing problems.

UNetbootin isn't actually installing Linux on your computer fully. If you're familiar with emulators, you could say it's sort of like a Linux emulator. It installs everything you need to "fake" having Ubuntu installed on your computer, but it gets put on the Windows partition. It's mostly intended for those who just want to try it, or who don't want to lose their Windows data. Because it's installed on the Windows partition, if you format the disk, it wipes all the data you need for Ubuntu. If that's your problem, download another copy of the iso on your MacBook, and burn it. To make sure it's not corrupted, you could use this to check it. You need to use a bit torrent client, like vuze or µtorrent, but it will automatically check the MD5 sum file to make sure you have gotten it corrupted before it finishes downloading. Then, pop that in the optical drive on your laptop, and install it.

If that's what you did, this should fix it for you. Let me know if you did something else. When you Ubuntu's loading and you see the command prompt, just let it be. Typing help or any other commands will slow it down, because it's running the installer/OS entirely off the CD, so it can only be as fast as the max read speed on your optical drive.

If you still need help going through the install once you're ready, shoot me an IM, I shouldn't be doing anything for a few hours.

Ok, we've gotta couple things going on here. UNetbootin is just a utility to make a flash drive a "CD". I think you're thinking of wubi, the fake dual boot system the last couple of releases have come with.

sgreger1... wubi would be a good way for you to try Ubuntu without doing anything drastic to your machine. I'm assuming you have a working Windows install, right? If so, the first step is to get a decent Ubuntu image to burn. I'd suggest getting the 32bit image. If you don't have more than 4gb of ram in your laptop, there isn't a lot of benefit to getting 64bit.

Lets do that first, and take it from there :^)

Edit:
This is the link to the 32bit image...
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/ubun...sktop-i386.iso

Keep in mind this isn't the latest release. The latest is 9.10, but there's been a lot of problems reported with it, and I'm not sure if they've been fixed. I don't pay that close attention to the issues. It may work for you anyway. It's not like all of 9.10 is borked, but it seems to generate more complaints than 9.04 did.

As an aside, I think I'm gonna try Debian testing in the spring. Ubuntu is a little to quick with full releases imo, and they rush stuff out the door. Things get released that need more time and testing to get right.

[sgreger1]

Thanks Lx. I am downloading the 32 bit one and maybe that will fit onto the CD.

So i should then download Wubi and use that, which will allow me to try it without wipng my hard drive or my videos?


Edit: Okay, got Wubi, ran it, now its downloading ubutu 9.1. Is this all I need to do? Thanks for the help. If windows runs slow because of spyware etc, will Ubuntu be slow as well untill I wipe the drive completely? Or does windows stuff not affect any functionality in Ubuntu?

[shikitohno]

UNetbootin has the same functions as wubi. It's how I played with Ubuntu at first. If it still boots into Windows, you can use gspace for some of the files, assuming you have a gmail account. You just need to install the firefox addon. I don't know of any free places you can store stuff online, however. Still, two gmail accounts will give you 10+ GB to put stuff up. Just don't try and do it with a really large file.

[lxskllr]

Thanks Lx. I am downloading the 32 bit one and maybe that will fit onto the CD.

So i should then download Wubi and use that, which will allow me to try it without wipng my hard drive or my videos?

No, wubi is built into Ubuntu. After you get it burned to a CD, *open up the CD while in Windows. It should give you a couple of options, with wubi being one. Go ahead and start setting it up using wubi, and follow the prompts.

What wubi does is it sets up a fake dual boot system in Windows. Performance won't be as good as a native install, but it's faster than running off a CD, and won't be a permanent switch so you can go back to Windows. Ubuntu can be removed through Add/Remove programs. You'll have to pick which O/S you want when you start the computer, and if you want to switch O/Ss you'll have to restart the computer again to change.

*Sorry for the vagueness of the instructions. It's been several months since I did a wubi install, and it was only the 1 time. It should be fairly obvious as to what to do though. I remember it as being pretty straight forward. If you have a chance to pick hard drive size for Ubuntu, don't use every last bit of your Windows free space. You'll want some for Windows to do Windows stuff. I don't know if that'll even be an option, but if it is, it's something to keep in mind :^)

[sgreger1]

Damn, Wubi is downloading 9.10 torrent and says 7 more hours. My internet sucks here.


EDIT: It asked for "instalation size. I think I chose 16gb. Does this matter?

[lxskllr]

Damn, Wubi is downloading 9.10 torrent and says 7 more hours. My internet sucks here.


EDIT: It asked for "instalation size. I think I chose 16gb. Does this matter?

That's 4gb more than you have :^P

I'd pick the 8gb as shown. Btw, 8.04 isn't a bad choice if you end up liking Ubuntu. It's the LTS(Long Term Support) version, and this spring you can in place upgrade to the next LTS version. LTS versions are released every 2 years.

Edit:
In case you didn't notice, the Ubuntu version number tells when it was released. They have 2 releases per year; once in April, and once in October. 8.04 in your screen shot was released in April(04) 2008(8 ). 9.04 was released in April(04) 2009(9). If you were to get the latest release, 9.10, it was released in October(10) 2009(9).

[sgreger1]

I cleared some stuff and I have 69gb of free space now so I should be good. Ill probably switch to the LTS version if i like it. Cant believe it will take 7 more hours to download.

[shikitohno]

If you like it and install it, just remember to back up all the data you want to keep. You're going to have to partition your drives, and even if you only use 69GB for Linux, and boot Windows on the other partition, you'll lose all the data. You'll also lose any data you get while running through wubi.

[sgreger1]

Wow so I let Wubi download 9.1 for 7 hours and after it was complete it gave me an error and all the data was lost. God continues to punish me with MS Windows.

[badlands]

i have never seen anyone have trouble installing unbuntu..that sucks. it is generally as simple as download the image for your architecture, burn iso image to cd, reboot, install.