Idiots Guide to How to create dual boot,XP and Linux please!

Dj_Steve has kindly consented to me "massaging" his two guides that detail how to install Windows alongside Linpus on a hard disk. There's no reason it won't work with an SSD-based netbook either, although there is a tweak for users with solid-state devices to get the best performance from them.

I'll include that in the guide. As I told Steve, I need something to do over the Xmas period and this will be my project. A way of giving back to the AAO user community (after all, if there wasn't one with people like DJ_Steve I would now not be running XP and Linpus on my AAO).

I'll post back here when I have something.

 

Getting one of these little bad boys for christmas. Really want to dual boot or triple boot to have linpus, fedora and XP. Looking forward to your guide.

Thanks

 

Yes, I've been working on the guide and now have to put a few screen shots in and generally tidy it up, turn it into proper English (just kidding Steve!) etc.

I certainly hope to have it done over the Xmas period - 4 days off, hurrah!

Just as an aside I've recently connected a USB modem (PAYG from Vodafone) to my AAO and it really has made the netbook a universal machine. I can now connect anywhere at all. You get funny looks when you search the Internet whilst checking out washing machine prices inside Comet and saying rather loudly "Oh look, it's £20 cheaper at Curry's!". Funnily enough they are quite eager to price matches!

Fantastic bit of kit!

 

Well, it turns out that the challenge is not in creating this "Dummies Guide" but getting it to display correctly on the plethora of browsers out there. I'm using HTML, Javascript and PHP and all the browsers support this in the same way.

I've tailored the guide to fit exactly on an Acer Aspire screen in Full Screen mode. Except that Full Screen mode means something different to all the browsers I've tried.

FireFox 3 works great.

FireFox 2 (as supplied with the Linus version) doesn't have a proper full screen mode, it still leaves a large toolbar at the top. So I've had to make it fit. At least it behaves in all other respects the same as FF 3.

IE 8 (beta) is 99.9% OK.

IE 7 as supplied with Windows XP SP3 is the most problematic and I'm working on a solution for this (given that this will be the most used browser out there! Typical!)

Google Chrome works well.

Safari works well.

Well, as I said I needed something to occupy my mind between re-runs of Sound of Music and Chitty-chitty Bang Bang.

 

Like the sound of pricing things up while on the move and upsetting the Curry's staff!

BTW - I guess most people will use the guide on a "normal" screen rather than on the Apsire as this will be required for continuity when network is down. But it's good to make it look good - thanks in advance for all your efforts.

(one more thing does the vodafone dongle work ok with Linux?)

Happy Christmas!

 

I have been trying to install winXP professional, and the big problem with DJ Steve's method for me is the dreaded "hal.dll" error just after the first reboot.

The winXP installation doesnt seem to like installing on a second partition (e.g. sda3 in my case). It only seems to get past this error if the install is on the 1st partition (after which it is works fine, except cant get Linpus working)

Maybe someone could suggest how to get Linpus working if it was copied onto a different partition with Gparted (eg sda1 as XP, sda2 linpus, sda3 linpus swap)???

I have also tried the linpus image method (http://lifeisasketch.com/node/6) but cant get this to work either, booting to linpus via the XP bootloader hangs the system before linpus even starts to load (yes the partitions are exactly as suggested!)

Suggestions???

 

Well I have a working draft version of The Idiot's Guide (using material from Dj_Steve) including how I circumvented the dreaded hal.dll error (fiddly but straightforward).

Any takers to proof read (I will PM Dj_steve to get his once over too)?

PM me and I will give you the web address. Constructive feedback only please! What I'm looking for is whether it displays OK on whatever computer you are running (apart from the AAO although that too).

If too many people PM me I'll post here that I have enough testers.

 

thought id throw up a reply in ere, its great to see some people are actualyl finding something ive written useful

 

I followed dj_steve's website's instructions but with problems, but cannot now boot into linpus after gparted step 13. (http://radiodmp.net/aspireone/blog/)

Windows XP install didnt go smoothly (as u see in my posting above) - had to edit boot.ini (using UBCD4WIN tools on USB) as install came up with cant find hal.dll error, as incorrect rdisk setting was detected by the windows installer.

My guess is that grub is messed up in some way, though I dont know how to fix it. Any hints u can give me?

 

My guide describes how to fix said boot issue with grub. Suggest you use gparted live to do it tho

 

Here is it, Idiot's Guide version 1.0 at http://jargongeneration.com (Just click the Acer Aspire image on the home page).

Supplied with no warranty as to fitness of purpose, and E&OE of course. DJ_Steve responsible for vast majority of content, I'm just making it looker a bit prettier and adding my own tuppence worth of experience when I followed his guide!

I made it work on my own Acer AspIre One and happily boot from Linpus to XP with no issues. [Note to self: must back up the disk].

Good Luck.

 

I'm having a bit of a problem. It sounds familiar to what others have reported.

I get to step 12A (installing xp) & get the hal.dll message.

On the way to step 12A, the new partition I created was (initially) reported as SDA3, as is suggested might happen.

After the failed xp install gparted now shows the ntfs xp partition as SDA2.

So I''m at a point now where I can't get any furthur with the xp partition install due to the hal.dll (with boot flag set for this partion using gparted).

If I change the boot flag to the linpus partion with gparted, that won't boot either, the cursor just blinks in the top left corner. So I can't get access to boot.ini to modify the partition assignments.

I have done the whole process twice, from a a fresh linpus recovery install and get the same results.

A previous post mentions using vi editor to edit boot.ini . Unfortunatley I'm not proficient enough in linux let alone vi to attempt this!

I tried a HP DOS boot pen drive, but can then only see c: which is the pen drive it self, and can't see any of the partitions on the HDD.

One thing I was wondering was about with DJ_steve's instructions was the backing up of the GRUB inormation (step 9 - cp /boot/grub/grub.conf /home/user), Now I don't know what grub is or what it does, but thought that if I could recover this then maybe that would be a way forward. But, again, I wouldn't know how to do this in any terminal program, including gparted.

Any suggetsions as to what I should do ??

 

That flashing cursor is dead giveaway that grub is courrpt. Grub is like linuxes version of windows bootini bootloader. Use gparted live to mount the linpus partition and restore grub. That should get linpus back

 

Hi Steve

Thanks for response

I'd need a step by step on this.

Is there's a menu or right click option in gparted to mount the linpus partion - or is this done using the terminal?

To restore grub would it be this from the terminal:-

su (switch to super user mode)
password: (enter your super user password - nothing appears on screen as you type)
cp /home/user/grub.conf /boot/grub

How would i make sure the cp command refers to the correct partition (and not the USB key I booted from)?

Thanks.

 

Step 15 of the Guide refers to what you must do; everything is done from the terminal (just like a Windows cmd prompt). What you are describing is restoring the GRUB config file; no need to do this.

To check you are at the correct mount point just do a dir command which shows you the current directory (come to that, so does the prompt).

Once again, I got to this point that you are in now - it's fiddly but relatively easy to fix. Don't panic and don't give up.

 

Ill do a howto if need be when I get home. Typing this message on mobile vcurrently

 

Seem to be sorted out dual booting now, thanks.

 

Main thread for Idiot's Guide has moved!

Please note that this thread has a counterpart here: http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=8944 where problems encountered using the Idiot's Guide can be posted.