Guide to Optimizing Your Dual-Boot Experience

This guide is not about how to dual-boot, but how to make your dual-boot experience better. The goal is to allow you to switch more seamlessly between your 2 operating systems, keeping files, browser settings, and the like more consistent between the 2. It's actually based on a presentation I gave to my local LUG (Linux Users Group) a few months ago, and really doesn't contain anything specific to the AAO, I just hope it will be useful.

My guide was based on dual-booting Windows XP and Ubuntu, but everything in it should apply to other versions of Windows, and other Linux distributions as well. I make no guarantees about anything, though, particularly when it comes to Linpus. I actually have my AAO set up to triple-boot XP, Ubuntu 8.10, and Linpus, but Linpus seems much less friendly to the sort of tweaking described here. I'll also mention that I have the hard drive version of the AAO, so I have much more space available than owners of SSD models. Nothing I describe should cause problems for SSD users, though.

I plan on breaking up my guide into multiple posts, just to make it a bit easier to read.

 

A Bit on Partitioning and File Systems

Out of the box, Windows supports the NTFS and FAT32 file systems. Generally, FAT32 will have better performance on small partitions, and a lot of AAO users with SSD models have elected to use FAT32 for that reason.

Linux supports a vast array of file systems, but most distributions default to using Ext3. If I recall correctly, Linpus uses Ext2, which is exactly the same as Ext3 but without journaling. Choosing Ext2 gains a bit of speed but with greater potential for data loss if something screws up. There are a myriad of other file systems available, but for a dual-boot system, you'll want to use either Ext2 or Ext3 for any data you want to share between the two operating systems. I'll also mention that it's only since early 2007 that Linux has had stable, reliable read/write access to NTFS, using the NTFS-3g implementation. It doesn't look like the NTFS-3g drivers are installed by default in Linpus - it seems to be using the old, read-only NTFS driver.

In setting up partitions, you will want, at a minimum:
1 NTFS partition for your Windows install
1 Ext2 or Ext3 partition for your Linux install
1 Ext2 or Ext3 data partition. This will be mounted as /home under Linux, and we'll re-direct the "My Documents" folder here later A lot of SSD users have an SD card that is used as the data partition. That should work seamlessly with my guide as well.

Optionally, owners of Hard Drive models may also want to create a swap partition for Linux to use.

My own partitioning scheme is as follows:

6 GB - Aspire's recovery partition
60 GB - Windows NTFS partition
40 GB - Ext3 partition, /home for Ubuntu
2 GB - Linux Swap partition
9 GB - Linpus partition
36 GB - Ext3 Ubuntu /partition

 

Installing Windows, and Software

When installing Windows, you won't really do anything out of the ordinary, other than not using the entire disk for the Windows partition. Install the various updates and anti-virus, as well as any Windows-only software you'll be using. When picking software, you will want to use as much multi-platform software as possible, but you'll also want to try to use the same version, or at least the same major revision. For example, if you're dual-booting with Ubuntu, stick to Open Office 2.4 rather than 3, since version 3 isn't in the Ubuntu repositories.

Basic software suggestions:
Firefox 3 - Web browser
Thunderbird - Email Client. Ubuntu uses Evolution by default, but it's Linux only
Pidgin - Instant Messaging
Open Office 2.4 - Office suite

Go ahead and install the multi-platform software, but you won't want to spend a lot of time customizing the settings yet.

Other software you'll need: Download the Windows driver for the Ext2/3 filesystems here Optionally, you can also install the Windows driver for Linux Swap filesystem, available here in the SwapFS section. This isn't at all necessary, even if you do use a swap partition under Linux.

You will also need TweakUI, avalilable here. This allows you to change a lot of Windows settings that are normally only changeable by editing the registry.

 

Installing Ubuntu

The Ubuntu install is also very typical, but as with Windows, you'll want to manually specify the partitioning. You'll want to create separate partitions for /, /home, and swap (if using a swap partition). Install Thunderbird and set it up as your default email app.

Go ahead and get your Thunderbird and Firefox configured to your liking. Set up email servers, install your extensions of choice. I find it a lot easier to set the Windows versions to use the Linux configurations than the other way around. And speaking of extensions, here's a tip I discovered. I usually find myself installing the same extensions whenever I install Firefox, but it can be a pain to search for each one. Install the Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer extension. This allows you to share your bookmarks across multiple PCs. Then create an "Extensions" folder in your bookmarks, and bookmark all your favorite extensions. Then when setting up a new Firefox install, install the Foxmarks extension first, and download your bookmarks from the server. Now browse your bookmarks to your "Extensions" folder and click "Open all in tabs". Boom - there's all your other favorite extensions.

You'll want to wait to configure Pidgin - I'll tell you how to share that config shortly.

 

Tweaking Windows

Here's where it gets interesting.

We'll start off with file access. When you installed the Windows Ext driver, it created a new Control Panel item, "IFS Drives". Open that up and you can now assign Windows drive letters to your Linux partitions. Pick a drive letter for your /home partition. You can also assign a drive letter to /, but it isn't necessary and can be potentially dangerous. The Windows Ext driver ignores all assigned file rights, so from Windows you can potentially delete or modify files that only Root can change under Linux. Note that this can be handy if you ever hose you Linux system. I usually don't assign a drive letter to /, because I can always set one if I need to.

Browse to your newly assigned drive letter and you'll see folders for every Linux user you've set up - in this case, probably just one. This folder is the home directory for your Linux account. In my case, I assigned the /home partition to H:, so my Linux home directory is H:\josh. The default Ubuntu setup is to have the following folders in the user's home directory : Desktop, Documents, Music, Pictures, Public, Templates, and Videos. (There's actually a lot more that aren't shown by default. Any file or folder that starts with . is hidden - these are usually used for settings or system files.)

So how do you have Windows store stuff there? There's 2 ways, both dealing with the "My Documents" folder. The first is to simply browse to c:\Documents and Settings\<your user name>\, grab the "My Documents" folder, drag it over to h:\<your user name>\ and drop it. Windows will handle re-directing all the shortcuts to My Documents into the new location, including shortcuts to sub-folders like My Music and My Pictures. When you're in Linux, you can access any of this stuff by simply browsing to your home folder, then to the My Documents sub folder.

The second way is a bit more complicated, but still pretty easy, and I think it keeps things a bit neater. Download and install the TweakUI utility mentioned in an earlier post. Start TweakUI, then expand the "My Computer" item on the left, and select the "Special Folders" item. You will have a drop-down box listing all the Special Folders Windows keeps track of. Go ahead and re-map "My Pictures", "My Music" to the "Pictures" and "Music" folders. "My Documents" could be mapped to "Documents", but Ubuntu treats "Documents" as more specifically used for actual document files, while Windows uses "My Documents" as a more generic user home directory. I prefer to have "My Documents" mapped to the h:\<user name>, but I have Microsoft Office default to saving stuff in the "Documents" sub-folder.

If you use Internet Explorer at all, I suggest you create an "IE Favorites" folder in your H:\<user name> and use TweakUI to move all your favorites there. It gives you a good way to access those sites while you're booted into Linux.

Note that the TweakUI method doesn't actually move any files. If you have already saved stuff into "My Documents", "My Pictures", etc..., you need to open the old location and move those files into the new location. This is the one disadvantage to using TweakUI instead of just dragging the folder. But you only have to do this once.

 

Firefox and Thunderbird

If you're starting from a fresh install of both Windows and Linux, it's easiest if you set up both Firefox and Thunderbird to your liking while using Linux. Install your favorite extensions, set up your mail servers, so on and so forth. Not reboot into Windows and install both programs, but don't even run them.

Now click on “Start”, “Run”, and type “firefox.exe -profilemanager” and hit OK. This brings up the Firefox Profile Manager. Since Firefox hasn't been run yet under Windows, there is no default profile. Hit the “Create Profile” button. Just keep the profile name of “Default User”, but hit the “Choose Folder” button and browse to the /home/username/.mozilla/ folder and select the strangely-named folder containing your Firefox profile for your Linux install. In my case, the exact path was H:\josh\.mozilla\omy3urld.default. Once your default profile is created, hit the “Start Firefox” button and watch Firefox load with all the bookmarks and extensions you had under Linux. If, like me, you have Firefox set to load the previously-opened tabs at startup, you'll see those load as well.

Repeat the process for Thunderbird, running “thunderbird.exe -profilemanager” and pointing to the profile under /home/username/.mozilla-thunderbird/ You'll see Thunderbird start up with your address book and all your mail accounts already set up.

If you have already set up Firefox or Thunderbird under Windows, and you'd rather use that configuration rather than the one under Linux, it's easy to do so. Under Windows, the profiles are under Documents and Settings\<user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<random>.default. If you haven't started Firefox under Linux, there won't be anything under ~/.mozilla/firefox, otherwise there will be a randomly-named folder containing the profile. I suggest you delete whatever's inside the profile folder, then copy in the contents of the Windows Firefox profile. Restart into Windows, start the Profile Manager as described above, delete the existing profile, then create the profile in the Linux path as above.

 

Other Programs: The beauty of ln -s

Linux has a standard function ln which creates a link to another file. This can be very useful for sharing configurations between operating systems. The proper syntax is

Code:

ln -s <original file> <new link>

For a real-world example, we'll look at the instant messaging client, Pidgin. Install Pidgin under Windows and configure it to your liking – adding accounts, buddy lists, etc... The configuration files are stored under C:\documents and settings\user name\application data\.purple (Purple is the underlying engine for Pidgin, much like gecko for Firefox) Under Linux, Pidgin stores the configuration under ~/.purple. (In Linux, ~ is a shortcut for your home directory.) To link the Linux configuration to the Windows configuration, first delete or rename the ~/.purple, then use the following command:

Code:

ln -s /media/windows/Documents\ and\ Settings/<user name>/Application\ Data/.pidgin ~/.pidgin

Tab completion comes in very handy for the absurdly long Windows file paths.

You can't replace an existing file with a link - In other words, the above command will fail if ~/.pidgin exists, which is why you need to delete or rename it first.

Note that you can only link the Linux configuration back to the Windows configuration, not the other way around, as Windows doesn't support linking.
You can use ln to share all sorts of resources, even for programs that don't make it easy. For example, there are a number of games available for both Linux and Windows. You can install both versions, then use ln to link music, maps, and other resources. This allows you to save disk space, and keeps your programs consistent if you've installed any custom maps, game mods, etc...

 

Well, that's what I've got. As I said, most of this was based on a presentation I made to my local Linux Users Group. Anyone else got suggestions/questions, feel free to post them. I'm far from a Linux expert, and I always welcome comments.