The story of Linux

OK, before you start rolling your eyes, this blog in not about the finnish kid who started it all. Its about my recent experience in installling linux on my laptop.

I have been a keen linux user for the last 6-7 years, However, for the couple of years i did not have my own personal copy of the OS on my laptop. Meanwhile i had stacked up my harddrive will all the junk from the world of Windows. This blog is how i went ahead with my renewed intention to install linux on my laptop.

Requirements

1. Install Linux

2.  Make sure i do not loose my Windows Data or application (no re-install)

Approch 1

1. I backed up all my critical data on a external hardisk

2. Un-instaled unused applications

3. Cleared all my temp folders, cashe, recycle bin etc.. (used CCleaner)

4. In this way made sure I had atleast 10G of free space

5. finallt ran Windows disk defrag

Now i had to partition my hardisk because linux makes use of ext2/ext3 file system and Windows XP use fat32/NTFS.  Things got tricky here as i had only a single NTFS partition containing all my Windows data in it. So, i decided to use a thirdpary software called Partition Magic to do the magic for me. However, i realized that even though i had around 24G of free space, there was no contiguous free space of 10G to create a new partition (that was strange). I abandonded this approch.

Approch 2 (Virtualization)

Alternatively i could either install linux as an application on Windows (http://andlinux.org) or go for virtualization. I decided on instalingl Linux on a virtual machine running Windows XP. So these are the steps i followed,

1. Downloaded VMWare Player and installed default settings.  http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

2. Downloaded QEMU and installed it to C:\linux\ubuntu  http://free.oszoo.org/ftp/qemu/win32/release/QemuInstall-0.7.2.exe  

3. Downloaded latest version of Ubuntu Desktop edition    

    (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download)  and coped the ISO to C:\linux\ubuntu

4. Created Virtual Drive for Ubuntu 

      Typed the below at windows command prompt,

     a) cd c:\linux\ubuntu

     b) qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk Ubuntu.vmdk 10G

5.  Made sure C:\linux\ubuntu has a file named Ubuntu.vmdk

6. Copied the following in to a notepad and saved it as Ubuntu.vmx in C:\linux\ubuntu

.encoding = "windows-1252"

config.version = "8"

virtualHW.version = "3"

ide0:0.present = "TRUE"

ide0:0.filename = "Ubuntu.vmdk"

#memsize should be min 1/3 of ram and max 1/2 of ram

memsize = "512"

MemAllowAutoScaleDown = "FALSE"

ide1:0.present = "TRUE"

#ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

ide1:0.fileName = "ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

ide1:0.autodetect = "TRUE"

floppy0.present = "FALSE"

ethernet0.present = "TRUE"

usb.present = "TRUE"

sound.present = "TRUE"

sound.virtualDev = "es1371"

displayName = "Ubuntu"

guestOS = "ubuntu"

nvram = "Ubuntu.nvram"

MemTrimRate = "-1"

ide0:0.redo = ""

ethernet0.addressType = "generated"

uuid.location = "56 4d dc 46 3c 44 fd 4d-20 23 5d 46 92 ec 5e 9c"

uuid.bios = "56 4d dc 46 3c 44 fd 4d-20 23 5d 46 92 ec 5e 9c"

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:ec:5e:9c"

ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"

ethernet0.connectionType="nat"

tools.syncTime = "TRUE"

ide1:0.startConnected = "FALSE"

uuid.action = "create"

checkpoint.vmState = ""

tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"

Note: Make sure there is no space at the begining of each line

7.  Created a shortcut to Ubuntu.vmx (application which starts linux henceforth)

8. Double clicking the above shortcut file started the VMware virtual machine and loded the linux installation

  process. ( Ctrl+G will all the user to enter information in the virtual machine terminal )

9. I went ahead and installed linux selecting the default options and entering the requested information.

10. Once the installation is complete. Shutdown the linux OS as well s the virtual machine.   

        Uncomment the following lines in Ubuntu.vmx

ide1:0.fileName = "auto detect"

ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-raw"

and comment the  following lines.

#ide1:0.fileName = "ubuntu-8.10-desktop-i386.iso"

#ide1:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"

 11. Save the file and restart linux.

Next blog will be on how to setup linux on a virtual machine to connect to DSL modem