Second hd for dual boot? Using ultrabay...

So I am thinking... If I get a Ultrabay and put a secondary harddrive onto my T61, can I host two OS? Vista and Ubuntu?

Is there a way to switch OS easily with this setup? I am trying to avoid erasing anything on my current harddrive with Vista on it... Idea is to add second harddrive and put Ubuntu on it...

Is it possible?

 

I did the same with XP and Vista

switch the boot device in BIOS to switch OSs

 

You could also use virtual machines and run Ubuntu, as opposed to a dual-boot. I find this scenario more flexible.

 

For testing purposes, I would go with some VM, but for daily usage, go with dual boot.

 

This is easy, in fact you don't even need to use two hard drives (I have 3 operating systems on my x200 Tablet with a single drive, although a chainloader is required for this).

The easiest way to dual boot this setup is to keep each operating system independent (different bootloaders for each at the MBR of its own drive). When you turn your computer on, press the key for a custom boot device (usually F12), this will give you a list of your eligible devices (HD1, HD2, Optical, SD card, USB, etc.). Select the drive you want, and the operating system will boot. Just set the default boot device in BIOS (first HD in the boot order) to your daily use system (Vista or Ubuntu).

 

Please provide a rationale for this. Years ago, sure, but today with dual core procs, lots of ram, and multiple drives, I fail to see an advantage of dual-boot

 

There are several rationales. I can think of at least two:

1. Inability to use 3D video hardware acceleration (or other video hardware acceleration).

2. Incompatibility with certain hardware peripherals (e.g. ExpressCard, certain USB hardware such as scanners etc.)

 

1.) 3D video acceleration is primarily for gaming (on laptops). Generally, you are talking Windows, so booting that makes sense if you need that for gaming.

2.) Today, most peripherals are supported via USB emulation, including Expresscard.

I can see why you would want to boot Windows native, but again Linux native boot really doesn't add much, unless you have some specialized need.

I used to be a big dual and triple boot fiend, but after virtualization matured, I can't really see a reason for it. (there is a speed benefit, sure, but switching between environments without shutting down (or running both simulltaneously) is well worth tradeoff, along with the backup/recovery capabilities.

 

I think the main reason would be speed. Even with today's CPU and RAM, still it's emulation, that requires extra resources/work.

I don't really see the point of intensive usage of an OS inside some VM. If I mostly use *nix in my daily work, why should I run it using VM?

However, on some level I would agree with you, sooner or later one OS will be dropped, and you will run other using VM, but not for daily work, imho, for testing, security reasons, etc... Depends on user's needs.

 

SDHC is pretty awesome. think of a superfast floppy disk that stores 16gb and you can find them at the local 7/11 or radioshack when needed.

personally i use one in my Aspire One for linux since its like 3x as fast as the Intel SSD.

you could have an Ubuntu SD card, a FreeBSD SD card. you can even install XP onto SD card with some .ini file hacking and such (Theres how-to's posted on the interweb naturally)

 

For this issue, I have a different story.

In my t61p, I installed ubuntu on my main hd (Hitachi 7k200), and a WD 120G hd in the ultrabay with vista installed. The OS installation is completely fine as well as the booting steps. However, when running applications in vista, it always pop up a message claiming that the program is too big to be fit in the memory. If I install the WD hd into the sata port instead of the ultrabay, everything just went smooth. I am guessing that has to be related to the interface issues with the ultrabay sub-system.

Did anyone actually use this option to dual boot with your ultrabay?

For the VM discussion, in my personal experience, VM is not as good as I expected. Despite of its lower performance, it turns out to be very unstable for me. It is true that the vm os works fine for 90% of the time, but when it collapse (it has a really high probability in my system), you lost everything. For reference, I was running VirtualBox on Ubuntu to emulate Windows XP. (normally runs ms office and visual studio)