Installation of Ubuntu...

Many of us are unaware off installing Ubuntu alongside other operating systems such as Windows 7... So I thought my experience of installing Ubuntu in various computers of my friends will be helpful for my readers. First of all ,let me answer the question that everyone who is new to Linux asks.. Why should I install Ubuntu along with Windows? What is more in Ubuntu than Windows..?In my view , Linux is a platform where you can play without fearing licence. U r a free bird in Linux environment..U can make any changes to ur OS.actually it will be your Own OS... U control what U do... Almost everything is reversible in Linux.. and you get a good support from ubuntu forums.So that even if you entered in any dilemas, there is always a solution other than formatting...

   Now to the main part of this post..Installing Ubuntu..(Other Linux OS are similar to this type of installation..So it will be nice if u experiment with other OS suvh as linuxmint, pinguy,etc).. There are two types of installation of Ubuntu with Windows 7.

Install inside Windows (wubi)

install in other partition..

In wubi, Ubuntu is installed inside windows..that is just like installing a software.. U dont need to know partitioning and all.. just insert ubuntu  disk, choose install inside windows. set username and password, Select boot point as / and install...so easy.. Now when you reboot ubuntu will be there in windows bootloader.. 

  but wubi had shown some problems in my experience.. I dont know the actual reason for that.. the ubuntu option may get removed from bootloader so that u cannot access ubuntu. But thi problem has been seen only in few..

  So inorder to install along wiith windows. Insert ubuntu disk and boot with CDRom.(Press f12,f2 or whatever it says at the time of booting and boot from cdrom) now, I prefer partition manually using GParted which is there in system->administration of Ubuntu live. In GParted, You can see the current partitions in your computer. 

                                         There are two types of partition.. Primary partition and logical partition.. Only 4 primary partitions can be made.. Inorder to make more than 4 partition you have to make one of them logical partition and then create extended partitions from that logical partitions. Any number of logical partitions can be made.

   Now select a partition that have larger size and right click on it and select resize. In the window that comes 15GB free ( i prefer 15 GB but U can allocate as much as u like from 10GB) you will have to mention the size in MB. and click ok. right click on that and choose format. select ext 4 journal file system. and press apply (green tick marl on the top). Otherwise it will just show as partitioned but not actually done.After thet again click on the largest partition and then resize. this time U are creating Linux swap.. To install linux you should have swap partition.Swap is just like temp. If there is not enough space in primary RAM ,computer takes space from linux swap.. Linux swap should be minimum size of your RAM otherwise you cant get the option to hibernate your system. If there i only 1 or gb ram and if you hav 320 gb harddisk, It is advisable to take double the size of RAM as swap.Otherwise swap as much as of RAM is necessary... To create swap, right click the resized partition ,and format. select SWAP from the file system. click apply tick mark. Now partitioning is over. Now click on install ubuntu icon on the desktop. choose setup manually. Select the ext4 filesystem. click format. Set / as mount point and forward... read the instructions and continue the rest...

  Installation is completed...

                                    KNOWN ISSUES

In dell laptops, a software called datasafe online rewrites the GRUB of ubuntu so that if u restart the system after working on windows , GRUB (where you select which operating system will be missing). For this the solution is insert live disk of Ubuntu ,mount the drive you installed ubuntu (by clicking that drive in places). Now take terminal and reinstall the grub..(https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows) and boot into the windows .now remove della datasafe from windows using adfd or remove programs in control panel.. And restart the system.. if there is no grub insert live cd and install GRUB once again.