Use Wubi or Install Ubuntu in separate partition

Ubuntu provides an exceptional option to install it as an application inside windows. All you need to do is download the iso file, mount it and run the wubi.exe. You will be prompted to select how much dsk space you would like to allocate for Ubuntu and in which drive. Enter the username and password and it will prompt you to restart. On restarting it will complete the installation process. You can also remove Ubuntu from the add or remove software option in windows.

Wubi.exe

Installing in a separate partition

If you want to install Ubuntu in a separate partition, you need to boot from an Ubuntu Live CD or USB.  To create a bootable USB in windows you an mount the iso and run the usb-creator.exe. If you already have Ubuntu you can use the Startup Disk Creator program in System>Administration. In other distributions you can use unnetbootin software to create bootable USB drive.

usb-creator

You need to have an empty partition. To partition NTFS (Windows drives) you can use partition magic. Linux Ext 3/4 drives can be partitioned using Disk Utility software.

Insert the CD or USB drive and reboot the computer. To boot from USB you have to enter BIOS boot selection using the special key ( different for different companies. For eg F12 for Lenovo ) and choose to boot from USB. Choose “Install Ubuntu” when the option screen turns up. Fill in the details which are quite straight forward except for choosing the partition.

Select “Manually Specify” in the partition selection menu and then a list of available partitions turn up. Right click on the one in which to install and set filesystem type to ext4 and mount point to “/” . Check the “Format” option and then proceed.

The Installation will complete in around 10 minutes. Enjoy using the Ubuntu 10.10 !!!

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