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Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Oldjim
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Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

I will very soon be reinstalling Vista as the startup takes ages.
Which is the best sequence for dual booting Vista Linux - install Vista first or second
13 REPLIES 13
Ben_Brown
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Registered: ‎13-06-2007

Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Don't know about Vista but every time I've installed dual boot windows and linux systems, I've installed Windows first. This is because the windows installer will trash the MBR, so if you install linux first it's a mission to get back to it.
Oldjim
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

As a first step I am running in Linux using PCLinux LiveCD and the first thing I notice is that this site loads screamingly fast by comparison.
I know I am not using a Security Suite but is there anything else which could explain it.
I can't see why Vista should affect site loading times
zubel
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Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

I find Vista to be orders of magnitude slower than Linux/Gnome for pretty much everything, particularly browsing, and any sort of file operations (like copying, for example).
Even Windows 7, which is much better than Vista, is still comparatively slower.
Of course, with a LiveCD, everything is running off of a ramdisk so it will be faster for certain things anyway.
B.
HairyMcbiker
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Jim, you can do either, but installing Linux AFTER a M$ install is the easiest way as Ben said. M$ tromps all over the MBR so that the grub loader is deleted, so you would need to :-
Install Linux
Install M$
Boot from a Linux CD and follow some online guide about how to re-install grub.
M$ first is the easiest way as Linux will add an item in the grub menu for you, and you can choose to have your M$ partition loaded as /windows or WHY.
As to speed of loading, well which browser are you using? FF3 on both? If so it is probably down to all the "pre-filtering" by your spam/av/cookie/etc filters esp if you have Mcaffe or Norton AV installed.
Good luck with the experiment
Ken (Currently on Ubuntu 64bit machine)
Oldjim
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Both with Firefox - must go back to Vista with Kaspersky disabled and see if there is any difference
Not applicable

Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Have read that, as has been said, it is always best to install Vista first.
Doubtless you know that I am no expert on this Linux thing but in my experiments I found that the Wubi install was much easier than the dual boot thingy (if that makes sense). On boot up I just had to select Ubuntu and that was it. Also, very easy to remove from within Windows and no objections from Vista.
SteveA
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

The way I did it on my Medion Laptop (OK its 32 bit but....) was this.
Laptop came with Vista Installed and two partitions. C (boot)  and D (Recovery).
I defragged the C drive and then went into the disk manager and went to the shrink partition option. Its a big disk (320GB) with about 300 available on the C drive. I worked out that I wanted to split the disk roughly 50/50 so I requested it to shrink the C drive and create a new partition. Request it BUT DONT create it, and make a note of the two disk sizes it comes up with for the new C size and the new partition.
Exit all of that without saving any changes.
Boot off the Linux install CD.
When it comes to the disk partition tell it that you want it to resize the existing partition and give it a value of slightly LESS than Windows gave you for the new partion size. It should then successfully resize the partition and install.
And that is basically it.
HairyMcbiker
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

But with a CLEAN install, i.e. a blank HDD. Just give vista however much you think you will need (10-20GB  ;D) then the remaining allocate to Linux (the other 980Gb  Shocked :))
As I have said before I only use the odd M$ program and that under Wine or via VirtualBox (a Sun product now) and most of that is printing in HiDef as Linux doesn't support HiDef on my printer a Canon IP4000, although the newer drivers are getting better, or for converting ebooks to fb2 format so I can read them on my EEE (the ABC Text Converter series is good but needs to be run in a VM it won't work in Wine.)
Oldjim
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

I will stay with my present partitions although I could install XP as the second operating system (original intention) and put Wubi in the Vista partition
Vista 100GB (45GB free)
Swap File 10GB
Data and Games 292GB (66GB free) of which games currently take up 74GB
Second Operating System 65GB
HairyMcbiker
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

You don't need a 10Gb swap file for Linux, I assume you have a reasonable amount of ram (2-3Gb) if so then no more than 1Gb is sufficient unless you want to use hibernate, then it needs to be the same size as your ram.
Or is the 10Gb for Vista?
The best performance will be if you give it the free partition, but wubi will let you try it out without repartitioning.
Oldjim
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

The 10GB is for Vista and XP (future) - Photoshop is a notorious memory/swap file hog
I wasn't sure about giving it a free partition but I was going to put it somewhere  away from the Vista partition to avoid excessive fragmentation.
HairyMcbiker
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

Hmm not sure what would happen if you share the same swap space between vista & xp never tried it.  Grin You might run in to issues with vista hibernating but I gave up on a a couple of years ago so I don't know, my major problem was with it hibernating and not completely recovering.
You will have to force vista to reboot the pc or shutdown when you want to boot xp but I guess you all ready know that  Smiley
Oldjim
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Re: Dual boot Vista Linux 64 bit

There is no problem sharing the swap space - it just overwrites the file. http://windowssecrets.com/2008/02/28/01-Save-space-when-using-two-drives-or-dual-booting
Regarding dual boot that isn't a problem although it's a bit trickier if you install Vista first http://windowssecrets.com/comp/080214/#story1 but you do need to stop XP deleting the Vista restore points