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=How to Dual-Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu With Only a Modicum of Frustration=

A great segment of the world's computer users champion the Linux operating system, Ubuntu, as an easy, secure, and cost-effective framework on which to run one's personal computer. I'd poked around the edges of open source territory with software like VLC Media Player and a screenwriting program called Celtx, but never considered Ubuntu or its OS brethren for installation. Confession: I'm notoriously hesitant (terrified) when it comes to substantial hard drive manipulation that could leave my system inoperable. This fear, however ridiculous, was the biggest determinant in my pursuing a dual-boot tutorial instead of a software-specific tutorial.

I'll be discussing how to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7. To prepare, I watched a lot of similar tutorials on YouTube. I read a lot of documentation from around the Internet on the steps involved. I discovered, oddly enough, that there are a few different ways you can do this. What steps some might argue to be critical may be bypassed completely by more seasoned experts. For the purposes of this tutorial, I've distilled it down to the steps that I found to be reasonable and time-friendly. I am also operating under the assumption that your computer is already running Windows 7. Sorry, Mac users, now it's your turn to feel socially isolated as a result of your technology choices.

Why Bother?
Users set up dual- or multi-boot systems for different reasons. Some users want to be able to run old software that may not have a version for a newer operating system. Perhaps most commonly, a dual-boot set-up provides a way for a user to grow their comfort level with a new and different operating system at its native speed without fully abandoning their former or current operating system. While virtual machine software allows users to do fundamentally the same thing as a dual-boot setup, it's not designed to mimic the performance of the operating system and is usually subject to latency and lags.

Most relevant to the field of library science, a multi-boot system allows libraries to offer users the operating system with which they're most familiar and comfortable without having to spend additional funds on more hardware. In this situation, a systems librarian would need experience partitioning hard drives and performing the hands-on installation procedures.

Ingredients
There's no special skills you need before beginning, but you'll need the following components handy:
 * 1 computer
 * 1 blank DVD/CD
 * 1 additional computer with Internet access (just in case)
 * 1 set of Windows recovery media (again, just in case)
 * Approximately 4-6 hours (often less, sometimes more, especially if you're already looking at this page with a deer-in-the-headlights gaze)

Have everything? Great, you're ready to install Ubuntu! ...
 * WAIT**! I nearly forgot. There's a good amount of prep work we need to do before getting down to the brass tacks of the actual installation. By good amount, I mean four key things, which we'll cover below, individually.

Stash Your Data Underneath Your Mattress
Or, more preferably, on an external hard drive, a few thumb drives, in the cloud, or on a lot of CDs or DVDs. You should already be in the practice of regularly backing up your important files anyways, so this is probably nothing new. Right?

Run This Funny Thing Without Any Vowels Called CHKDSK
Some tutorials recommend this, others don't even mention it. In this case, I did it because I'm paranoid and overly cautious.


 * 1) In Explorer, right-click on your C: drive, then select the Tools tab from the Properties window.
 * 2) Click on the Check Now Button under Error-checking.
 * 3) Select both checkboxes under Check disk options and then click Start to schedule the scan on your next system reboot.
 * 4) Restart and find something else to do while your system is running this for the next few hours. Popular suggestions include:
 * homework
 * siesta
 * watching three consecutive episodes of Dr. Who
 * slow-roasting a pork loin



Defragmentation Station
Assuming everything checked out fine during the disk scan three hours ago, you're almost ready to start the installation process. Before that though, it would be wise to defragment the drive you just scanned. No one likes it, but defragmentation is an occasional necessary evil in the Windows world that can boost performance. But wait, there's good news! Whichever activity you thought about doing while CHKDSK was running, can be done now. You might even have time to do it twice.

Pre-Installation Hard Drive Partitioning (optional)
Remember that part in the last section, where I said you're almost ready to start the installation process? Yeah, I actually meant you're almost ready to partition your hard drive. Sorry about that, but again, this step is optional because the Ubuntu installation has a built-in partitioner.

What's a partition? Picture your hard drive as a pie of some sort, it doesn't matter if it's sweet or savory or actually just a giant cookie. Partitions are segments or slices of the whole pie that act as individual units of storage. On each of these segments your system will store the operating system, and probably recovery storage in the event your system crashes. More often than not, the Windows installation takes up the majority of the hard drive volume. To prepare for Ubuntu (or any new operating system in a multi-boot set-up), this volume needs to be shrunk to free up space for a partition for the new OS. Windows 7 needs about 30GB to run optimally, while Ubuntu needs about 10GB.

Do the following to shrink the Windows 7 partition, using Windows Disk Management:
 * 1) Select Administrative Tools from the Control Panel.
 * 2) Select Computer Management from Administrative Tools.
 * 3) Select Storage from Computer Management.
 * 4) Select Disk Management from Storage.
 * 5) Right-click on the Windows 7 volume/partition (possibly **Windows7_OS (C:)** and choose Shrink Volume.
 * 6) The tool will analyze the volume for available shrink space. This number will be represented in MB and you can toggle it within but not beyond that number. After you've made your changes, click OK.
 * 7) Reboot your system once or twice to let Windows rescan the new partition and reconfigure its startup files and processes.

Creating the Ubuntu LiveCD (i.e. you're really close to installing Ubuntu)
To install Ubuntu, you'll first need to burn an ISO image file to disc, using the 1 blank CD/DVD referenced earlier. An ISO image is simply an archive or source file which contains different data contents, and it needs to be burned to disc in a particular way, or it won't be read properly when you attempt to boot from the CD or DVD. Instead of dragging this file from your Downloads folder onto a blank optical disc as you might with an executable, be sure to right-click on the file and select Opens With, then choose Windows Disc Image Burner. Visit the Ubuntu Download page to grab the ISO image file.

The resulting disc contents should look like this when viewed in Explorer:



Actually Installing Ubuntu!
With your freshly burned installation disc in the drive, reboot your computer. It should flow directly into the Ubuntu set-up, but if not, hit F2 (or F12) during the restart to get to BIOS, where you can change the boot sequence to start with your CD/DVD drive.

If you still have cold feet about the whole thing, the LiveCD allows you to play around with the OS directly from the disc before (or even without) installing it. Once you commit though, the installation process is very straight forward. If you've already partitioned the hard drive previously using Windows Disk Management, you needn't do it again during installation. The only thing I might discourage in the set-up is the option to import your documents and settings from Windows to Ubuntu. (It actually froze my installation progress at 83% and I had to force a shut-down).

After installation is complete, restart your computer, and eject the installation disc. If all has gone according to plan, you should be greeted by the GRUB menu, which is Ubuntu's bootloader that allows you to choose which OS to launch.