Posted: 3/11/2008 5:48:33 PM EDT
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After reading so many things about Ubuntu I decided to give it a try, but since my wife doesn't like the dual-boot option (we have tried it before, and she's not too crazy about it), I used the live CD version. Damn, it's so EASY!!!!! Pop in the CD in the driver (make it bootable), reboot, and that's it. It loads much faster than expected (just a couple of minutes). No issues, no nothing. It detected my home network ( I was opening files from my second computer in no time at all). Video, sound, everything, it's very slick. I'm typing this from Firefox in Ubuntu, and working on some Excel documents in OpenOffice Calc. If you are curious about Ubuntu and don't want to mess with dual-boot configurations and what not, just use the live CD. It's great! releases.ubuntu.com/gutsy/ |
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Your wife doesn't like dual boot? What's not to like? Ask her which install to use (sounds like Windows) and set that as the default. She doesn't have to do anything but turn on the computer. When our Windows install went bad, my wife used the live CD for a week while I worked out hard drive configurations. She now uses Ubuntu full-time, and the Windows partition install still isn't complete (memory card reader driver, etc.). |
Will have to try that. Our previous experience with dual-boot (first with Caldera, then with Mandrake) wasn't too good for her, as Linux would boot first within 5 seconds, and she hated having to wait for Linux to finish booting before she could re-boot to Windows. I'm liking the idea of Linux (again) more and more, and this live CD is great, but, yes, it's no real substitute to a hard drive-installed OS. I'm still amazed at how easy and fast the hardware and network detection went... |
When you install Linux, go in and edit the /boot/grub/grub.conf file and set the default to whichever entry Windows is. You can change the timeout option here as well. This way she doesn't have to do anything, as it will automatically boot into Windows, and when you want to use Linux, you just hit the arrow key at the Grub (bootloader) screen and select Linux. |
Thanks! If only I had known about this 5 years ago... |
Um, while I think the grub configuration file is indeed in /boot/grub/grub.conf for RedHat-based distributions, I think the Ubuntu distro has it in /boot/grub/menu.lst. - same file, just different location. HTH |
That would be the same location, but different file name. I think you're right about the name though. |