My Triple-boot system

Triple Booting Fedora, Ubuntu and PC-BSD

I’ve been wanting to try a non-Linux OS for quite sometime, and managed to download PC-BSD today. My PC  already runs Fedora 13 and Ubuntu 10.04. I use Fedora’s GRUB to manage my boot process. After installing PC-BSD, I stuck with the same bootloader to manage the boot process.

I primarily use Fedora 13. The rest of the folks at home use Ubuntu or Fedora. I’ve messed around a lot with GRUB 2, but I do not like fiddling with a new version of the bootloader. So I remain loyal to the ‘legacy’ version of GRUB and will be using it until Fedora migrates to the new version.

You can also set up a triple boot (or any n-boot) system by using the older version GRUB. The process takes just a few steps.

Here’s how I did it:

1. I installed Fedora 13 first, and with it the GRUB to the MBR.

2. Later, I installed Ubuntu 10.04, but chose not to install the bootloader in the last step in the installer. You can do this by clicking on the Advanced button.

3. To add Ubuntu to Fedora’s GRUB, I just had to add the title, root and kernel entries for Lucid:

title Ubuntu 10.04

      root (hd0,2)
      kernel /vmlinuz ro quiet splash
      initrd /initrd.img

4. I installed PC-BSD, once again without the bootloader.

5. To add PC-BSD to the boot menu, I added just 3 lines:

title PC-BSD 8.0
      root (hd0,3)
      chainloader +1

An advantage of using GRUB 2 in one of the distros is that I never need to update the GRUB menu on Fedora. GRUB 2 automatically places a shortcut to the latest kernel in the / directory of the Ubuntu partition, so one doesn’t have to keep updating Fedora’s GRUB menu whenever Ubuntu’s kernel is updated.

Note: The logos in the image are copyright of their respective owners.

My classmates are tilting towards Linux!

It seems that most of my classmates are moving to Linux, mostly Ubuntu and Fedora, although it is for the sake of their projects. Here goes a comparison why Linux is infinitely better than Windows here:

Tools for the job:

• For my friends who need to do image or signal processing as part of their work, there are two options: Matlab or Octave. But Matlab isn’t free while Octave is. One professor recommended Octave to his students, and others are following suit.

• For the project I’m working on, I need a SCM tool, and one that runs on Linux. I’m using git, python, pyxml and umbrello for my project since I’m more comfortable with Linux than Windows (At places where I must use Windows, such as internet cafes, I still press Alt-F2 to run a program ) Thankfully, my teammates are also comfy with Linux, one being a RHCE.

• Some friends of mine are working on cloud-based projects, so they have been using Ubuntu server (since their guide has heard of Eucalyptus)

One of the reasons I love Linux is the fact that the whole household can use it for work and play, and I can type in my native Tamil as fast as I type in English. I admit that the Unicode keyboard profile is not the best thing out there, but practice and patience mean that it is far easier now to type in Tamil than to transliterate.

There are some people who’re reluctant to come out of their Windows shell (oops, is there a shell in windows?), mainly due to fear or fan-worshipping Bill Gates.  The former category would do better to read this:

“After closing the doors that lead you nowhere, throw away the key! Because our tendency is to look back and regret.” – Paulo Coelho. But I don’t regret it, and so won’t you.

My Jackalope jogs jauntily again!

In my last post I had vented my disapproval at Ubuntu 9.04 being not up to scratch. But I really wanted to use this latest version of my favourite distribution. So I thought of an alternate way to install it onto a flash drive without creating any new partitions. I have a 4 GB Buffalo flash drive, which is quite ample for a default Ubuntu install. This is how I accomplished it:

1. Install Ubuntu inside Windows using WUBI:

a. Choose ‘Install inside Windows’ option:

b. Set the size of the install to a capacity that is less than your flash drive. My drive can hold 4 GB, so I chose 3 GB:

c. The installation process will begin, and after it ends, reboot your PC.

2. After reboot, choose Ubuntu from the boot menu. Then Ubuntu will install on to the loopback device. (The space you allocated during install has been used to create a virtual loopback device that Ubuntu will use as a hard disk partition.)

3. After installing Ubuntu, reboot with a Linux Live CD(which includes gparted) inserted in the drive, and then insert the flash drive in which you intend to install Ubuntu.

4. Run gparted. This is used to edit partitions. Format your flash drive using NTFS. Then set the boot flag active.

Note: This can also be accomplished by the HP Windows Format Utility for USB Drives on Windows.

5. Copy the following files to your flash drive:

boot.ini

NTDETECT.COM

ntldr

wubildr

wubildr.mbr

ubuntu – folder

6. Edit the boot.ini file:

Original file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:wubildr.mbr = "Ubuntu"

 

Modified file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=C:wubildr.mbr
[operating systems]
C:wubildr.mbr = "Ubuntu"

This makes sure that your flash drive has only Ubuntu, and it’ll boot into Ubuntu on any computer.

7. In your flash drive, navigate to  ubuntudisksbootgrub and open menu.lst with a text editor. Search for the string root=UUID , and change all occurrences from root=UUID=<some_number> to root=LABEL=USB.

8. Now reboot your system off the flash drive, and Ubuntu will be up and running!

9. Install a few necessary packages, I chose to install: Adobe Flash player, plugins for proprietary media formats (restricted packages) and Eclipse. You can install as many packages as you want, which of course depends upon how large your flash drive is.

10. Now you have  a portable computer that you can use on any PC without needing to fear about privacy or security.

 

Adapted from : http://www.pendrivelinux.com/move-wubi-ubuntu-install-to-an-external-usb-drive/

Linux outgrows itself!

A few moments before I began typing this, I checked out the Ubuntu Free CD request page to see if I could order Jaunty Jackalope (that’s the code name for Ubuntu 9.04) which was released yesterday. Lately my torrent client has stopped working since I bought a new router, and I did not want to increase the load on HTTP/FTP servers. So I went to the Ubuntu Free CD Request Page, to see if I could order a CD online. Surprise, surprise! The site was offline and this was what I beheld:

Ubuntu's Free Media Page Offline!

Now this is the first time I’ve seen this page taken offline. So it’s clear that Linux, specifically Ubuntu is making a dent in the mainstream desktop OS market, which has till date been monopolised by, you know what that thing is, yeah, Windows. A major story that has been making news this week is the dip in sales for the Redmond based Microsoft, the big daddy of software manufacturers. This can be due to fall in PC sales, but another factor that may go neglected is that Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu have been replacing Windows slowly. They may never overtake Windows in the desktop space, but they present an alternative, free to tweak as far as you take it, to Windows.

I’ve been using Linux on my PC for the past three years now. The first distribution I tried was openSUSE 10.1 in September 2006. I was amazed at the eye candy and the speed. Yeah, it was cooler than Vista or Aero, and ran on a quarter gigabyte of system memory! I’ve since used many other distributions, but the images of my PC performing faster than I could ever dream of, and those marvellous visual effects, will remain etched in my memory for long. I can’t say Linux is perfect, though. Out of the box (as soon as you install it and run it the first time) many essential features may be unavailable. These are mostly audio-video support, driver support (that’s no more an issue now, Vista is worse than Linux in device support) and some small quirks (such as where the hell is office!). But these do  not bother me at all. I’m patient enough to download and compile/install all these packages. Many are not, so I suggest you take a look at Sabayon 4.0(I’m using it right now, and its a breeze to install. Only quirk for the new user: compiling from source, although many packages are available as binary installers these days.) This is an awesome distribution, breezy and easy to  use. I wish there was more awareness about this alternative to Windows, so that people who cannot afford the money to buy shareware could benefit from this new wave. Yeah, for the cost of a Windows licence(5000+ rupees) one can feed a child for two months. So I think this is the time for a new revolution to make knowledge accessible to all.