Ubuntu

Installing Ubuntu/Vista with no partitions

Asked by TheSeanKelly

I am currently on a dell latitude notebook with windows vista installed and running. I am home from college and would like to experiment with a dual boot of vista and Ubuntu. Unfortunately, I left my system discs at school by mistake, and am wondering if it is possible to simply install Ubuntu without creating separate partitions? I realize this would be a non-ideal setup, but can it be done? Assuming it can and I like the dual boot setup, I'll probably end up doing a format and partition things out correctly once I get back to school.

I'm also worried about messing things up while I'm here without my system discs, but I can't imagine installing Linux would mess with vista, or would it?

Thanks
Sean

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#1

Please explain better what you mean when you talk of "system discs"...

Thank you

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TheSeanKelly (theseankelly) said : 		#2

sorry, my vista install cd, as well as device drivers, etc. Things I would need if I were to reformat and partition

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#3

You don't absolutely need Vista install cd...

Ubuntu will works separately on different partition and don't need any Vista driver

You need only the live Ubuntu 7.10 install cd...

Here an how old Ubuntu 6.06 howto video
http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/Installing_Ubuntu_with_Windows_Dual-Boot

Hope this helps

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TheSeanKelly (theseankelly) said : 		#4

no no - the reason I'd need my vista disc is because right now my machine is formatted as it was in the factory (one big partition for everything) so I don't have a separate partition for my vista OS like I should (never got around to re-doing it), and in order to create that partition I'd need to format, partition, and reinstall vista.

thanks for that link though, its beneficial

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Olivier (olivier-lacroix) said : 		#5

Not at all : during the install process, ubuntu will offer you to shrink the vista partitio for you.

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TheSeanKelly (theseankelly) said : 		#6

yeah i've read that, but unless I'm confusing the definition of partition, I don't HAVE a vista partion. I just have the standard C drive which has the vista OS and all my files and programs, etc

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Jim Hutchinson (jphutch) said : 		#7

Yeah, I think you are confusing it a bit. Vista is currently installed on one big partition which windows calls the C drive. Ubuntu will shrink that partition and create a new one (actually 2) to install on. Your C drive will be smaller and you will have ubuntu installed on the rest. However, if you make the mistake of installing Ubuntu on to the entire hard drive you will erase windows so be careful and back up your files just in case. Done correctly it's a simple and generally safe process but mistakes can happen.

I think you are making it harder than it is. You don't need windows CDs, you don't need to manually create any additional partitions. You just need to boot the live CD, test drive it a bit to see how it works on your hardware, and then install. When you get to the partition step of the install make sure you choose the shrink drive and use free space option. Read through these directions to make sure you understand. That's all there is to it.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

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ramakrishna (suryadevara-ramakrishna) said : 		#8

in vista itself you can shrink the c drive to upto about 15 gb and 2 more partitions or more extended partitions and ubuntu can be in those partitions.

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