Ubuntu Install (GRUB) help?

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

Okay...starting to get frustrated.

Here's my story: Trying to run Ubuntu as my main OS, while I still have XP installed to run a few programs I still need to use occasionally.

First I installed Windows. Then I installed Ubuntu.

Now when I start up the computer I get the boot menu (it's the windows boot menu). If I select Windows, it loads XP. If I select Ubuntu it starts loading then goes to a command prompt. Obviously I'd like it to load Ubuntu!

So, can anyone point me in the direction of how to get Ubuntu to load automatically, with the option to load XP instead during the boot process.

I've tried fooling with GRUB, but I can't find any decent documentation on how to get everything to work. It would be nice if there was a website written by semi-techie people like me. Everything I've read is obviously written by people that understand this stuff up and down, but don't realize that not everyone on the face of the earth is as knowledgable as they are.

Thanks in advance. Hopefully I can get this rolling. Eventually I'd like to dump Windows completely (at least for my personal use).

[sleepypedro]

that's not a GRUB issue.

grub is booting your linux image just fine.  the GUI isn't starting.  your x configuration is suspect.

just try reinstalling, since you haven't gotten very far?

if it fails again, try reinstalling with a different / more modern video card.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

that's not a GRUB issue.

grub is booting your linux image just fine.  the GUI isn't starting.  your x configuration is suspect.

just try reinstalling, since you haven't gotten very far?

if it fails again, try reinstalling with a different / more modern video card.

Cool. I reinstalled once. Still didn't work. My video card is about 4 years old. I figured Linux would work fine with older equipment. It does load up with Live Disc fine.

Is there a list of acceptable video cards.

My video card is a Nvidia FX 5200. Nothing special, but fairly popular.

THanks for the quick response.

[tchoub]

hello,
I am not really answering your question... but if you want to run both ubuntu and windows, you can try andlinux (http://www.andlinux.org/), which allows to run ubuntu seamlessly in Windows.
Ubuntu updates are made simple with Synaptic. It works really well !

[flipp]

I tried installng Ubuntu on a W2K box and found this the best explanation of how to do so.

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_linux_xp_installed_first.htm

Things didn't work too well so I uninstalled Ubuntu, put in a second hard-drive and installed Ubuntu on that drive. I had disconnected the W2K drive so Ubuntu thought there was only one drive in the system. When I reconnected the W2K drive the box wanted to boot into Windows so I went into the BIOS and changed the boot order. Now I have to manually select the Windows drive if I want to boot into Windows. About the only time I do so is when I need to use Samplitude. If you have a second hard drive, loading Ubuntu on it and changing the boot order may solve your problem.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

Thanks for all the help. I think flipp is on the right track. I've done some more reading and I think my problem is that it can't find the boot partition.

sleepypedro suggested that I read the Ubuntu Forums so I'm doing that. Feel free to comment if you've had this problem or know the solution. I'll report back with what I find on the Ubuntu Forums.

T's all around!

[sleepypedro]

mike, if it's booting into a working command shell, it's totally finding your boot partition.

your issue is that the GUI is not loading.

if it were a GRUB issue, immediately after selecting "Ubuntu 8.04" or whatever, it would say "image not found" or something very clear like that.

what command prompt are you ending up at when you select Ubuntu?

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

The command prompt I'm getting is: (initramfs)

Still working on this. Loads of fun. 

I'm going to figure this out...although I may just try and start over from scratch as my Windows install seems to be flawed (so I need to do it anyway).

[flipp]

lots of bug reports connected with initramfs

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-tools/

< do any of the screenshots in this thread look like what you see?
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-tools/+bug/174428
does it even get as far as those screen shots? >

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

SUCCESS!! (sort of).

I wiped the entire drive (including erasing my original XP install which was missing the Terminal Service needed for Fast-User switching), re-partitioned it (with 4 Primary partions) and re-installed Ubuntu. Flawless so far.

I think my problem may (or may not) have been related to partitioning the part of the disk for Ubuntu with Logical partitions. I don't know enough about that stuff to say for sure.

Now I need to get the rest of the system working. I'm pretty sure my wireless card is going to be a PITA to get working (if it can at all). I may have to buy a new one (joy).

To start I'm going to try to get Ubuntu working for my very basic tasks (surfing TS.com, torrenting, and listening to music). Hopefully in the future I can get some more moderate tasks done with Ubuntu (Some music software and getting it to work as a Media Center computer).

Thanks for a the help everyone. I may have more questions. Hopefully not.

Another round of T's!

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

UPDATE:

Things are going well, so far. I'm coming to you from my Ubuntu install. First step was to get my wireless USB adapter to work. It isn't supported in Ubuntu so I had to use the ndiswrapper to run the windows drivers for the card. Took me a while to figure out how to get the drivers out of the .exe file that Belkin uses to install them in Windows. The solution was to run the exe file in .wine (windows program emulator) and take the extracted files from there.

Next up: getting MP3's to play. I think I already got the MP3 playback working, but I still need to get my soundcard to work (it's a Audigy ZS 2). The card appears in my Volume Control but I haven't heard any sounds other than the test sounds. So maybe I have it working, but have something else to figure out.

EDIT: Got the sound figured out. Don't exactly know what I did...but it works.