I want to try Ubuntu on my Lenovo...

[TBSN]

I've never used Linux, for the same reason most people haven't; it's SCARY. I want to try it though, and I realize that it's not really as bad as I imagine it to be (i.e., choosing the right distribution, correctly installing it, etc.) Most of these bad associations come from trying to install a hard-core flavor of Unix, sans GUI, on an old Dell machine. It was a nightmare.

But Ubuntu is a widely used OS, if I have heard correctly, and since I have this laptop that I had to get from school, I thought I'd experiment with Ubuntu.

--Will it work with a laptop, and do the things it's supposed to do? (such as go to sleep or turn off when I shut the lid

--Does it have energy options for running on battery?

--How do I know if it will work with this Laptop? (it's a Lenovo Thinkpad R61)

--Would it be unwise to dual-boot Ubuntu with WinXP on a 103GB harddrive?

--Also, the graphics on this laptop are... uninspiring. Doesn't Ubuntu have an aero-like desktop? I want to try it either way, I'm just wondering if I'm going to have to turn certain options off...

Thanks for the help, and tell me if I should just stay with Windows and forget I ever heard of Linux, because I'm thinking this might be a bad idea...

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Just boot the live cd, you can try it out and if you like it, it's easy to install.

I'd recommend OpenSuSE, Fedora and Zenwalk over Ubunu though.

But if you are into Ubuntu, get the live cd and boot to it, just know that there are other (better IMO) distros out there.

Now, if you want to install, well then you definently will love Zenwalk, just go with the defaults and let it rezise your partition.

103Gb? i've got 120 and i have 5 OS's on here, install ext2 support (works with ext3 too) in windows and use the /home/yourname folder as a storage place for both.

Personally, if i had to choose one besides XP it'd be Arch Linux or OpenBSD, not neccessarily in that order, but i'm ok with the syntaxes and editing files manually, i kind of like the control, if you don't, then those are not for you.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: TBSN
I've never used Linux, for the same reason most people haven't; it's SCARY. I want to try it though, and I realize that it's not really as bad as I imagine it to be (i.e., choosing the right distribution, correctly installing it, etc.) Most of these bad associations come from trying to install a hard-core flavor of Unix, sans GUI, on an old Dell machine. It was a nightmare.

But Ubuntu is a widely used OS, if I have heard correctly, and since I have this laptop that I had to get from school, I thought I'd experiment with Ubuntu.

--Will it work with a laptop, and do the things it's supposed to do? (such as go to sleep or turn off when I shut the lid

--Does it have energy options for running on battery?

--How do I know if it will work with this Laptop? (it's a Lenovo Thinkpad R61)

--Would it be unwise to dual-boot Ubuntu with WinXP on a 103GB harddrive?

--Also, the graphics on this laptop are... uninspiring. Doesn't Ubuntu have an aero-like desktop? I want to try it either way, I'm just wondering if I'm going to have to turn certain options off...

Thanks for the help, and tell me if I should just stay with Windows and forget I ever heard of Linux, because I'm thinking this might be a bad idea...

I'll tell you how I know it'll work with your laptop. I have the same one.

Well the R61e, to be exact. Everything works perfectly out of the box. Once I got my laptop I scaled Vista's ntfs partition as low as it could go, installed Ubuntu, and never looked back.

Originally posted by: TBSN
--Will it work with a laptop, and do the things it's supposed to do? (such as go to sleep or turn off when I shut the lid

By default, when you're running off the battery and close the lid it'll just blank the screen, but you can change it to hibernate (sleep) or suspend.

Originally posted by: TBSN
--Does it have energy options for running on battery?

Yes.

Originally posted by: TBSN
--Would it be unwise to dual-boot Ubuntu with WinXP on a 103GB harddrive?

You can dual boot if you want to. Totally up to you. Also keep in mind that if you partition Ubuntu to use ext3 as the filesystem format then you can easily access your windows partition from within ubuntu and your ubuntu partition from within windows.

Originally posted by: TBSN
--Also, the graphics on this laptop are... uninspiring. Doesn't Ubuntu have an aero-like desktop? I want to try it either way, I'm just wondering if I'm going to have to turn certain options off...

Yup, and they don't strain your system at all unlike Aero.

 

[TBSN]

Originally posted by: JohnOfSheffield
103Gb? i've got 120 and i have 5 OS's on here, install ext2 support (works with ext3 too) in windows and use the /home/yourname folder as a storage place for both.

Tell me more about this ext3 thing. I'd definitely want to dual boot, as I'm pretty much a Windows person so I don't think I'll be able to replace all the programs I need. Perhaps I will be able to eventually, though, and that is part of why I'm so interested in an free OS.

I am planning on reinstalling Windows on this machine anyway, so I guess I can partition it as I set it up, right?

Also, can partitions have different file-systems? I don't know what kind(s) Ubuntu uses...

Personally, if i had to choose one besides XP it'd be Arch Linux or OpenBSD, not neccessarily in that order, but i'm ok with the syntaxes and editing files manually, i kind of like the control, if you don't, then those are not for you.

I really don't know why I decided on Ubuntu, I guess I just need something that is popular enough to have a variety of good programs, plus support. When I tried another Unix distro (OpenBSD, I think) there was no GUI at all and I couldn't really do anything

Originally posed by: SleepWalkerX
You can dual boot if you want to. Totally up to you. Also keep in mind that if you partition Ubuntu to use ext3 as the filesystem format then you can easily access your windows partition from within ubuntu and your ubuntu partition from within windows.

That would be nice. Ext3? I though all windows used was NTFS and FAT32? Are there more advanced file-systems that Ubuntu or other comparable Linux OS's use? I heard that Apple's OSX will change to a newer file system in the not-so-distant future...

Thanks for all the help!

 

[silverpig]

You can get a driver for windows which will allow it to read/write to ext2 partitions (and ext3 I believe, as ext3 is just ext2 with journalling). So that's just a program you install inside windows.

You can definitely have different file systems on different partitions. You can have them all different, all the same, whatever you like.

I'd suggest you stick with ubuntu. The forums are large and are a big resource for help when/if something doesn't work.

Windows does use ntfs and fat32(although fat32 isn't actually installed on anything anymore), but you can get the program which will allow you to see ext2/3.

Here's what I suggest if you are planning on reformatting anyways:

1. Wipe the drive completely during the windows install.
2. Make 1 partition for windows however large you like... 15 GB should do.
3. Install windows in that space as per usual.
4. Pop in the ubuntu cd and manually create the other partitions.
- make one ~15 GB and set it's mount point to "/" and the filesystem type to jfs
- make one ~2 GB and set it to "swap"
- make the last one fill the rest of the space and set it's mount point to "/home" and the filesystem type to ext3
5. Proceed with the ubuntu install

There are other options which will work of course, but this will allow you to use the large /home partition to be readable in both windows and linux.

 

[TBSN]

Thanks for the detailed instructions, that's exactly what I needed...

So, if I understand this right, there will be 4 partitions: one for windows, two for Ubuntu and one shared for files.

so this for Windows:
C:/Windows and let's say D:/Home for shared files.

and for Ubuntu, well, I don't even know how things look in Ubuntu, do they even use letters? Well, it doesn't matter, I'll find out...

Where can I find the driver to let Windows use ext3? (and why don't they make one that lets windows read/write the OSX file-system?!!)

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: TBSN

Originally posed by: SleepWalkerX
You can dual boot if you want to. Totally up to you. Also keep in mind that if you partition Ubuntu to use ext3 as the filesystem format then you can easily access your windows partition from within ubuntu and your ubuntu partition from within windows.

That would be nice. Ext3? I though all windows used was NTFS and FAT32? Are there more advanced file-systems that Ubuntu or other comparable Linux OS's use? I heard that Apple's OSX will change to a newer file system in the not-so-distant future...

Thanks for all the help!

There are more file systems available under the Linux kernel, but they haven't had the kind of support that ext3 has had. You won't be able to easily access other Linux partitions in Windows. The other file systems are said to have better overall performance (like JFS, XFS, ReiserFS), but aren't as stable as ext3, imho. I'd only recommend JFS as opposed to ext3 as IBM designed it around fast crash recovery and tends to be one of the quickest.

The most advanced file system today would arguably be ZFS. Sun developed it and Apple is planning to use it for their future Mac operating systems. Unfortunately, due to the licensing around ZFS it can not be packaged into the Linux kernel. You can run it in Linux, but its a lot harder to setup.

Here's the link to the ext2/3 windows driver. link

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: TBSN

Originally posed by: SleepWalkerX
You can dual boot if you want to. Totally up to you. Also keep in mind that if you partition Ubuntu to use ext3 as the filesystem format then you can easily access your windows partition from within ubuntu and your ubuntu partition from within windows.

That would be nice. Ext3? I though all windows used was NTFS and FAT32? Are there more advanced file-systems that Ubuntu or other comparable Linux OS's use? I heard that Apple's OSX will change to a newer file system in the not-so-distant future...

Thanks for all the help!

There are more file systems available under the Linux kernel, but they haven't had the kind of support that ext3 has had. You won't be able to easily access other Linux partitions in Windows. The other file systems are said to have better overall performance (like JFS, XFS, ReiserFS), but aren't as stable as ext3, imho. I'd only recommend JFS as opposed to ext3 as IBM designed it around fast crash recovery and tends to be one of the quickest.

The most advanced file system today would arguably be ZFS. Sun developed it and Apple is planning to use it for their future Mac operating systems. Unfortunately, due to the licensing around ZFS it can not be packaged into the Linux kernel. You can run it in Linux, but its a lot harder to setup.

Here's the link to the ext2/3 windows driver. link

ZFS also has pretty crap performance right now in Linux.
Every Linux file system has their ups and downs.
Ext3 has some pretty archaic limits, and is fast in some things, slow in others (same with ext2). It's basically all about redundancy though, it's the only file system I've seen run perfectly fine (perhaps with some advanced long running disk checking run) on a technically dead hard drive (failed SMART).

ReiserFS used to be fast, but all the other file systems have caught up. It's optimized mostly for speed with small files, and is very efficient on space.

XFS and JFS are similar in reliability and speed, though XFS has higher system requirements, is more advanced, and less crash safe (both use significantly delayed writes).

Reiser4 is an oddball, not yet ready for general use(perhaps never) and is really fast on some things (mainly using its gzip compression module, which trades off processing power to zip things on the fly which cuts down on the amount of data to write to and from the hard drive, vanilla reiser4 is not so fast). Not supported in the linux kernel, and may never be due to the creator going to jail for murder. Too bad, it seems promising, but a lot of the things it attempts to do, Linus Tovalds would rather not have handled at the file system level, and it's not crash safe yet.

Ext4 is the successor to the throne right now I suppose, and is also pretty fast. Not crash-free yet either, but it's good enough that it's making it into the kernel. Ext2/3 systems can migrate to this, so even if the other file systems seem tempting now (not that there is much difference in actual use, other than reiserfs using a noticeably smaller amount of space and the next gen file systems like ext4, zfs, and reiser4 looking very promising if they can just get things right), you could do an ext3 system now and upgrade once ext4 is good to go.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: TBSN

Originally posed by: SleepWalkerX
You can dual boot if you want to. Totally up to you. Also keep in mind that if you partition Ubuntu to use ext3 as the filesystem format then you can easily access your windows partition from within ubuntu and your ubuntu partition from within windows.

That would be nice. Ext3? I though all windows used was NTFS and FAT32? Are there more advanced file-systems that Ubuntu or other comparable Linux OS's use? I heard that Apple's OSX will change to a newer file system in the not-so-distant future...

Thanks for all the help!

There are more file systems available under the Linux kernel, but they haven't had the kind of support that ext3 has had. You won't be able to easily access other Linux partitions in Windows. The other file systems are said to have better overall performance (like JFS, XFS, ReiserFS), but aren't as stable as ext3, imho. I'd only recommend JFS as opposed to ext3 as IBM designed it around fast crash recovery and tends to be one of the quickest.

The most advanced file system today would arguably be ZFS. Sun developed it and Apple is planning to use it for their future Mac operating systems. Unfortunately, due to the licensing around ZFS it can not be packaged into the Linux kernel. You can run it in Linux, but its a lot harder to setup.

Here's the link to the ext2/3 windows driver. link

I would like to thank you for the link :thumbsup:

 

[TBSN]

Thanks for all the help, I finally installed Ubuntu onto my Lenovo (well, it's installing right now...)

I left 30GB free for a future windows installation, but I don't know if the lenovo recovery CD will work if the drive is partitioned.

I used JFS for the "/" partition and Ext3 for the "/Home" partition.

Ubuntu is totally alien to me, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. I like how it comes with all the programs I need (i.e. Open Office, a media player, etc)

 

[sourceninja]

Originally posted by: TBSN
Thanks for the detailed instructions, that's exactly what I needed...

So, if I understand this right, there will be 4 partitions: one for windows, two for Ubuntu and one shared for files.

so this for Windows:
C:/Windows and let's say D:/Home for shared files.

and for Ubuntu, well, I don't even know how things look in Ubuntu, do they even use letters? Well, it doesn't matter, I'll find out...

Where can I find the driver to let Windows use ext3? (and why don't they make one that lets windows read/write the OSX file-system?!!)

Actually the way he described it, its 1 for windows 3 for ubuntu.

Swap is not for sharing between coputers, its like the windows swap file. Linux prefers it on its own partition so it doesn't fragment your filesystem.

I don't bother anymore with separating /home from /, at least not on desktops. I just have 2 partitions

1 - ntfs windows (320 gig for my occasional gaming urges)
2- ett3 ubuntu (500 gigs for every day use)

I then mount my swap as a file inside the filesysem rather then use a partition.

The best part about linux is there is more then one way to do it.

For you, I would just back up your current pc, stick in the ubuntu disk, use it to resize your windows partition to make space, then let ubuntu automatically partition the free space for you.

Worry about the best setup after you get used to linux.

 

[AustinMatherne]

I think you might be confused on something.

"/home" is the Linux equivalent to My Documents in Windows. It also holds all of your program config files. The advantage of having it on its own partition is that if you need to reinstall/upgrade the OS at some point you don't have to format the "/home" partition and thus you don't lose anything.

You'd still need to reinstall programs, but their configurations will still be the same.


Linux doesn't use drive letters, instead it uses mount points for all drives.
You should read this as it will help explain the Linux file system.

Welcome to the world of Linux.

~ Austin
P.S. If you have any trouble start a thread over at the Ubuntu Forums the people over there are nice, and you'll get an answer to almost any question within a few minutes.

 

[TBSN]

I guess I didn't really understand the /home partition, but if it's basically like the My Documents folder, its all good. I made it big, like 65GB, so I guess I can also use it to store music, documents, etc. that I can use on both Ubuntu and Windows, right?

 

[TBSN]

Well, I've been using Ubuntu for a bit and I am starting to really like it. I don't know if this is true, but it seems much more responsive for doing things like just browsing the internet, checking email, all on a bunch of different tabs. Usually the fans would start to kick in under Windows (I'm using a Lenovo R61) just by playing videos in firefox, but this has been quiet at a mouse...

I'm still trying to figure out a few things, like why I can switch between workspaces with the trackpad, if I slide my finger onto it from the side a certain way... It's really strange.