General :: Installing Fast Distro Alongwith Win7
Apr 4, 2010
I recently got an ASUS laptop with a Core i5 processor and an ATI VGA card. I would like to install a fast distro and keep my Win7 installed. [dual boot]. I hate Windows 7 because it boots really slow even on a 64-bit system like mine (they claim it's 60% faster, and it still takes about 2 minutes to boot). So I want a distro that boots really quick (in less than 25 seconds). Also, I need it to have the very latest drivers because my laptop is quite new, and I read that the same VGA card I have already has problems when running under Ubuntu. (Not sure though)
I like programming (Python and Processing), so I did lots of research and figured out that Fedora is pretty good for programmers (it has many programming languages and IDEs already configured in the system..no need to install anything!) + I think it's pretty secure since it is based on RedHat Linux + I read some stuff about Fedora 11 and their promise to boot in less than 20 seconds, donno about 12 though? is it true anyway?
On the other hand, some say that Fedora's package management is not very cool when compared to openSuse's decent package manager and system administration tools...etc. Linux Mint looks very elegant and it can run Ubuntu's packages [I suppose] so it's another possible choice too. CrunchBang is also really attractive and minimal, they say it's also quite lightweight..so that's another possible choice for me too
My questions are:
- Which of the above distros is the fastest when booting? This matters the most for me.
- Which one has better support for the most recent drivers? especially for laptops?
Is there any other distro that boots faster than the above distros (in less than 25 seconds on a Core i5) and still has good hardware support and security? I don't really care for the distro's appearance as long as it does the job.
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Nov 30, 2010
i want to install ubuntu 10.10 in my lap along with win7 as multiple OS. installing and disk partitioning
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Apr 26, 2011
I'm looking for a fast Linux distro to put on a USB key. The goal is to be able to boot in as few seconds as possible, with just enough to mount a hard drive and do some basic operations in there (bash would be enough).
I do need:
x86 and x86_64 support
EXT2/3 and NTFS mounting capabilities (read & write)
Networking support (/etc/network/ config is fine, no need for detection) Bash (another shell would also work, but I would have to modify some of my scripts I would prefer if I didn't to have to build these programs for the selected distro, but that's always an option. I do not need:
X, or any form of GUI
more languages (english is enough)
anything not mentioned
I don't care about the size on the USB key, but the bigger it is, the longer it will take to load. My research pointed me towards these distros, but I not sure which one to choose:
ttylinux
Tiny Core Linux
tomsrtbt (doesn't look maintained anymore)
I also found these tools I could use to build my own distro (as a last resort)
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Feb 4, 2011
I've been using linux for a while (various distros) but somehow they dissapointed me. I know what I'm looking for, a lightweight, fast, minimalist but customizable enough, with no specific graphical environment, bleeding edge distro for a new laptop (used for studying and surfing internet), that hopefully works with my hardware.
I want to have the possibility to compile from source to make my own changes but also to install from binaries easily. I'm not a linux expert, not even an advanced user but I'm willing to learn anything to get my distro running so I'm not looking for a full out of the box distro. It would be great if this distro also had a good community.
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May 4, 2010
I ask to linux experts if it is possible to easily create a base debian distro that allows wireless networking and synaptic utility (and the basical tools) aimed at booting very fast, from hard-disk or stick. After installation, it would be possible to install other stuff, not much in fact. It should be able to recognize the hardware and then boot without checking everytime.
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Mar 7, 2011
I just install ubuntu 10.10 on my laptop and after that my 7 OS never boot at all.
(I before used linux with vmware on win7)
Any way... my friends say it related grub2.
I use this command :
Code:
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Mar 24, 2011
No matter what distro I have used, when I run a live cd/usb installer... even without installing the OS or accessing the OS hard drive, Windows 7 freezes after logging in. Running this on an Asus G73-JH, I've seen similar problems from other people with Asus notebooks, but they have actually installed the linux OS. Running Windows home premium x64
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May 15, 2011
I've assembled a new computer to replace a dead Xp/Debian dual boot machine. I have been persuaded to go for Ubuntu as a Linux-only box, running Win7 as a virtual machine. I had some help setting it up with two discs in a Raid1 array, and it works pretty well. One of those discs is, I notice, set up as bootable.
But.... it is causing a major headache in respect of USB when emulating windows. I cannot use devices such as my USB printer at present, and I have an urgent task which requires printing capability and Windows. I have spent time trying to sort the USB problem without success and have decided to take an alternative route for the present.
I have purchased two extra discs which are not included in the Raid array, with the intention of using one of them for a Win7 installation, making the machine dual-boot for now. Eventually the intention is to revert to Linux only with a 4-disc Raid.
And don't know how to proceed. I formatted one of the new discs to NTFS using Ubuntu's Disc Utility, and tried to install Win7 on that disc. I get a warning that Windows cannot find a suitable disc on which to install. I've tried with XP as well, and this copies all its files before proudly announcing that there is no suitable disc space on this machine. Two new 1Tb discs and no space!
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Apr 6, 2011
I have windows vista installed on my laptop and i wanna have a linux too. i dont wanna lose my windows. which distro allows me to have my windows and installing linux at the same time??
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May 29, 2010
I'm a pretty experienced Windows user, and have coded in x86 and win32 API for a while, so I know the system reasonably well. I've used windows since the days of Win95, and prior to that I had an Amiga - so I'm pretty rusty in unix-like operating systems. I have little C coding knowledge beyond reading it, though I can understand what the programmer is doing from reading the source. My only experience with installing linux was on a 486 laptop that failed spectacularly when the CDROM couldn't be detected and used, so I'm necessarily a little wary of doing this, but I've become quite exasperated with Windows lately.
I have decided to make my life interesting (if not easier at first) by dual-booting Linux with Win7. My current machine is a dual-core intel laptop with 2GB of RAM and an ATI X1250 mobile GPU, with a 120GB HDD. I have two partitions currently on this machine - both 60GB-ish. The main C: drive is Win7. I'm aware of the hidden partition that Windows installs. I have an external 1TB USB drive for my applications and data, so space shouldn't be a problem. There is no floppy drive (unsurprisingly) and I can boot from the internal DVD drive.
I have chosen the Slackware 13 distro because it seems to be well respected as a learning tool for unix-like operating systems. My main aim here is not to abandon Windows at first, but to learn a new OS. I'm aware that Slack may not be the most user-friendly distro, but will give me knowledge that I might not gain under other distros. If I'm making a mistake here, then let me know! I have plenty of free time to devote to this little project, and I'm not afraid to learn. I am however afraid to destroy my Win7 fall-back. If all else fails, I need to be able to go back to a working OS to jump on the net to find the answer to what went wrong.
So my question, as per the subject title, is: What do I need to know before I do this? I have no idea what I'm doing with regard disk partitioning beyond Partition Magic - which I don't actually possess anymore. I can use the Windows disk management app. I have no idea how to manage a boot sector. So are there any gotchas that I need to bear in mind? I've already read this thread: [URL]. Which I must admit looks very complicated! I have a fair bit of time before my Slackware 13 DVD-ISO image downloads (20KB/Sec) so have some time to gather information.
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Jun 10, 2011
We have the need to install an older Linux distribution (Suse 10) on a brand new laptop. The kernel that comes with Suse 10 doesn't have new enough drivers for the NIC and the drive controller. We've been able to find the source code for the NIC and build a working NIC kernel module however, we can not find the source code for the drive controller outside the kernel tree. Newer kernels see the drive fine; the controller is the Intel ATA_PIIX. Its included in the kernel, the hardware we have it just newer than the version in the old suse 10 kernel supports. I've crawled all over the intel site looking for the code outside the kernel source and have been unable to do so. Is it possible to lift the code from a newer kernel source tree? Is it available for download anywhere?
Edit: (from a comment below) SLED-10-SP2-x86 is the OS. The installation of these systems in an automated process, trying to change the process to include a VM (if we had the memory) or install a different base OS; while doable- can't be done in the time allowed. To get through process development, testing, UAT, staging and deployment takes much longer than the time we have. The old laptop had this same issue and the fix by my predecessor was building the NIC and drive modules by hand. We need to simply update those modules for this new laptop
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Mar 1, 2011
Last week I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my system in dual booting. I had installed succesfully both but unable to see data files from windows OS. Though I have excercised the options in various resources available on internet/blogs. System takes about 03 hrs during installation process. I am also unable to configure Thunderbird.
System hardware info is as -
System ManufacturerVIA Technologies, Inc.
System ModelKM266APro-835
System TypeX86-based PC
[code]....
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Nov 20, 2010
My partition layout is as follows:
sda1: 14GB / ext4
sda2: 10GB /iso ext4
sda3: 4GB /home ext4
sda4: 86GB Extended
sad5: 2GB swap
I have 84GB free space on this hard drive and want to install another distro. Will I be able to create another / and /home partitions for the new distro?
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Jun 21, 2011
the only issue that i have: the wireless is always disabled.
when i install new updates, the wireless comes back enabled and everything is fine but when i restart ubuntu its disabled again !!
i have a DELL studio 1537 laptop (broadcomm wifi card)with a win7 service pack 1/linux ubuntu 10.04 LTS dual boot.
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Jan 9, 2010
nominate a disastrous distro from past or present that was simply AWFUL and what exactly was so bad about it?
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Dec 14, 2010
I am using ubuntu 10.10, and I have to install win7 alongside for work, but when I inserted the disc, and started setup. It prompted me to insert the proper driver for my dvd drive. I researched the problem, and apparently it's a problem with Driver Signature Enforcement. To get past it, your suposed to reboot, and hit f8 to go to the startup menu, and disable the check drivers option, but in ubuntu I dont get that option, I think f8 opens grub or something. Is their any solution to this problem that you have encountered? I have done research, and I cant find anything,
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May 14, 2010
I'd like to install xp, win7, fedora, ubuntu. I installed xp then I used gparted to create a partition before xp and installed w7 both can dual boot fine. I installed fedora 12 in grub I can see fedora and windows bootloader. I can get to win7 and login fine. When I go into grub, then win bootloader, then xp, I can get to the login screen, but I can't login. I enter my pw, it takes several seconds, seems to login, then quickly logs out. I see "closing network connections", then I'm back to the xp login screen again. I'm not sure why I can't login to the xp partition. Fedora and win7 work fine. Win7 & xp worked fine before fedora. Grub menu.lst looks ok. After fixing this, I'd like to next install ubuntu
hd0,0 - sda1 - w7
hd0,1 - sda2 - xp
hd0,2 - sda3 - extended
hd0,4 - sda5 - fat32 (data)
hd0,5 - sda6 - /boot fedora
hd0,6 - sda7 - / fedora
hd0,7 - sda8 - swap fedora
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Apr 27, 2011
how do i correct my boot loader after installing Win7 on the free space available. i still have my fedora 13 partition intact. but of course, fedora option is not available. how do i re-install grub using the rescue dvd? tried alrerady.
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Oct 2, 2010
I have a harddisk which is partiotioned in C & D. I've installed WIN XP on C and WIN 7 on D. Then I installed Ubuntu 10.04 on D beside WIN 7. Now I can't access to WIN 7 and also to drive D in XIN XP and in Ubuntu.
What can I do to get back WIN 7 and drive D ?
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Dec 25, 2010
I had win 7 installed, decided to install ubuntu on this desktop computer. I had a windows partition, and a few other partitions, one with a wubi install of windows that I never used, so I decided to delete it, while installing ubuntu 10.10. I had free unallocated space for installing ubuntu, which was contiguous to the partition of the wubi install of ubuntu, so I decided to merge them, I did all this in gparted while installing ubuntu 10.10, 2gb swap, then 15gb root and all that remained to home.
Everything worked out fine (of course I never touched the win7 partition). After reboot grub doesn't show win 7, so I thought I'll just add it to grub, followed a few tutorials on this forum, but nothing worked. Then I remembered that the partition which I deleted to merge with the ubuntu partition, was an Active partition, and soon found out that my win7 partition was not active! (this is probably because I installed win 7 while I had still win vista, so that active partition was where vista was).
So now a ~100mb apparently unallocated partition was the active partition (win 7 hidden boot partition?), and trying the Startup repair of win 7 cd doesn't work, tried bootrec /fixboot, successfully, but bootrec /rebuildbcd can't find any Windows installation, even after setting the win7 partition as active with DiskPart. This is almost entirely a windows problem, but I just wanted to have Ubuntu working alongside Windows (I use a lot adobe's sw, which runs sadly only on windows, otherwise I would use only ubuntu).
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Aug 15, 2009
I have two sata HDs. One of these has Debian an Winxp installed. Grub is the bootloader. Grub resides in MBR (on the same disk). Now that I've added that second disk, I would like to test win7 on it. What I would like to do is to be able to choose -at boot time (maybe in bios setup)- between booting from the disk containing win7 or from the disk containing Grub with winxp and Debian. I thought that when installing win7 it would let me choose the disk where to install it and here is where the problem arises.
Win7 installer detects my partitions and lists them as if they were not on different disks. What would happen if I choose to install win7 on the partition I want to (second disk, partition1)? Will win7 create a new bootloader? Now I am a little confused and don't want to keep on going not being sure the results are what I expected. What steps should I follow to install win7 on the second hard disc not affecting the disc with winxp, debian and grub letting me choose between these two Operating Systems?
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Nov 17, 2010
I have recently bought a Asus Eee PC Seashell 1005PX and it came with Windows 7 Starter Edition, it doesn't have any CD/DVD so I'm gonna/have been trying for some time now to install Slackware 13.1 from my 8GB USB stick. I downloaded the 13.1 ISO file and used Unetbootin to transfer it to my USB stick. I get stuck in the setup in the setup when I am to select the SOURCE DESTINATION. I've tried /dev/sdb1 which is my USB, also i've tried using mount into different directories but i'm new to Linux so that didn't go very well..
Some of you have recommended Alien BOB's guide but I have read the first parts of it. Is it really for people with Windows OS? It's a bunch of Linux CLI code and programs.. ?
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Apr 16, 2011
I'm trying to dual boot F14 along side of Win7 and I'm running into partitioning errors - "Could not allocate requested partitions: not enough free space on disks" I used the Win7 Disk Management to shrink the C: drive by 100G, and the Disk Utility in F14 shows the unallocated space. Here is what the current layout looks like:
--210Mb bootable (sda1)
--168Gb (sda2) --Win7
--105Gb unallocated -- Future home to F14
--31Gb extended (sda 3) -- not sure what this is used for
--31Gb (sda 5) -- Lenovo drivers
--16Gb (sda 4) -- Lenovo restore
Am I running into the partition limit I have been reading about? If so, is there a way to get around this? I really don't want to delete the partitions yet.
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Feb 5, 2010
I am using Mac Pro with MacOS + Vista 32bit +Ubuntu installed. Using rEFIT with lilo bootloader. I want remove Vista 32bit and install 64bit Windows 7 instead. I am afraid of trying to install Win7, because it may delete bootloader. How can I remove Vista and do a clean install of Win7 to my Mac Pro without losing ubuntu and MacOs?
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Jun 24, 2010
I already have Xbuntu installed on /dev/sda1/ but i would like to install Windows 7 now on /dev/sdb2. My goal is to manually set boot priority in my BIOS to boot from either one. So my question is, by installing Windows 7 on sdb2 will I still be able to boot from sda1 if I select it as primary boot drive in BIOS, or will it still wipe my MBR and Grub2 on sda1?
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Sep 30, 2010
After install of Ubuntu 10.04 I cant boot WIN7 from the Grub menu.
root@asus:~# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 32.0 GB, 32017047552 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3892 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcb5bd2b2
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 3890 31245312 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3890 3892 16154 ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
Disk /dev/sdb: 31.9 GB, 31914983424 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3880 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0002ac5b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 3391 27230840+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2 3391 3881 3931137 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 3391 3852 3701760 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 3852 3881 228352 82 Linux swap / Solaris
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Aug 21, 2010
well, gonna straight-explain what I`ve here: had a Win7 64bit installed machine and created a D drive as I was intended to install Suse there (so it`s `Extended`) after succesfully installed SLED and finally restarted the laptop to see use Win7 again there was no Loader for me to choose which Operation System (I have another machine with XP,Ubuntu and Pardus - never had sucha problem)then I had to chose SLED of course but this time it didn`t bring me to the login page but to the Command Line of SLED, and the thing is that I can`t use command line on linux. tried several times and with failsafe login but stıll having command line and there is no Win7 to run on Loader.
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May 22, 2010
I am trying to install Ubuntu inside Windows 7 without the hassle of creating a partition. Here's what I have done: I downloaded the ubuntu-10.04-desktop-amd64.iso and then burned it onto CD. Ran Wubi from the CD. Selected "Install inside Windows". Waited for the Ubuntu installer to finish and then rebooted. Selected Ubuntu. Ubuntu starts to load and all. Then it ask me to pick which partition where to install Ubuntu. I don't want to create a partition to install Ubuntu. I want it inside Windows.
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Feb 13, 2010
OK, I've tried to install:Mint 6, 7 XFCE, and 8jolicloudeasypeasyand probably another or two..Oh, I'm installing this on my Acer Aspire One 751h, so I am using a USB key and UltraISO, with the exception of jolicloud, which has its own USB creator, and most recently I tried Mint 6 using UNetBootIn.Anyway, I keep getting the same general error, but with different files... Sometimes its errno5: input/output error, and other times its parts of a file (blah/doowop/dadada/video....) I don't know if its a driver problem or what, but I've seen video, sound, and other random stuff.. each time it gives a different one though.Either way, the main paragraph in the window talks about having a dirty CD, needing to replace my hard drive, or burning a new CD at a slower speed... I've checked the md5sum, and that's not the problem.
I'm wondering if my problem is that I'm creating the USB from one computer, and then trying to install it on the 751h. Another thing that might be causing the problem, but I doubt, is the fact that when I set up the partition, I select "use entire disk". Another question, Does it make a difference if the drive letter changes? On our main computer, the USB is mapped to drive E:, but on the 751h, it shows up as D:. If I have to change it on the 751h, how can I without an OS? when trying to install linux, it wiped out my windows, and I don't feel like re-installing it just to change it in a few minutes.
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Oct 30, 2010
how to install the new Ubuntu KDE/Gnome global menu to another distro (like opensuse for example)
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