Dual boot Windows XP and ubuntu 8.10

I bought a second hand computer for real cheap so I thought it might be a good idea to try and setup a dual boot using windows xp and ubuntu 8.10

I asked a few people at work and they said it would be very straight forward so I decided I should give it a go and I had nothing to lose. But the journey was harder than I thought.

It is a good idea to install windows xp first. This is because if you decide to install windows second, windows overrides the boot load so you wont get the option of which operating system you would like to load up.

Before you start installing anything, you should decide how the hard drive should be partitioned to accommodate the dual boot. Now I had a 120GB hard drive. So I wanted 40GB for windows, 40GB for ubuntu and 40GB as a separate partition for my files so that both operating systems can access it.

By default, ubuntu can view and modify the contents in the windows partition but windows is unable to even see the ubuntu partition.

Installing windows xp first

So the mission began and installing windows was easy but it takes a while. Maybe about 25 to 30 minutes. So when I was asked about the partitions at the start I only created one 40GB partition and left the rest as free space. The rest of the installation is straight forward.

Let me say, windows xp is extremely fast on the clean installation. The time from computer startup to desktop is like 15 seconds. There is hardly any loading time for the operating system.

But I had a major problem. I had nothing in the "Network Connections" so I could not connect to the internet. The computer was connected to the router but I could not connect to the LAN. I believe some network adapter drivers are missing. But this is a separate issue I will discuss later.

Next installing ubuntu 8.10

The live feature available when installing ubuntu is very handy. It loads up quickly and you can use the operating system without having to install it. It detected being connected to my router automatically and I could browse the internet straight away. So its good how everything just works without having to do anything.

Then on the desktop there is a icon called "Install" which allows you to install ubuntu through a nice wizard. Everything is straight for apart from the Partition section.

There are a few options when decided where ubuntu will be installed.

1. The first option is resizing an existing partition to make room for ubuntu. The problem was that it was only resizing the 40GB I had allocated for windows.
2. There are 2 other options but both of them result is using the entire disk (120GB) for ubuntu.
3. The last option was to setup the partition manually, but this requires some advanced knowledge regarding allocation of disk space required for ubuntu. Like allocation space for the root, swap etc

None of these is what I wanted. I already had 40GB for windows and I wanted to use the free space I had left.

After some researching, I found out there is a "Partition Manager" option in the "System" menu on the live running system. This allows you to manage the partitions on the disk.
You can add, edit and delete partitions.
So after some fiddling around, I created a FAT32 partition at the end of the disk and resized the windows partition to take up 80GB. Resizing partitions is quite simple because it involves dragging a rectangle to the size required.

Then I started the installation progress again and when I got to the partition section I selected the first option of resizing the windows partition which I changed to 80GB. So know is have 40GB for each operating system. The rest of the installation is straight forward.

Finally

Now its was time to restart the computer and to see which options I would be confronted. These are the options:

1. Load ubuntu, the name started with ubuntu but there was lots of random text afterwards.
   
2. This had the same text as the first but the "(Safe)" at the end
3. There is an option to load another operating system.
4. The last option is windows xp