T61 and Vista/Linux dual boot

Anybody have any experience on installing vista and linux (ubuntu) on a T61 in a dual boot configuration. I need vista for some applications, and prefer ubuntu for daily tasks.

 

Yes, but instead of writing a guide for you... I'll direct you to some I found on the incredible ThinkWiki site.

Installing Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) on a ThinkPad T61
Great guide for Ubuntu 7.04. (Should still apply to 7.10).

Installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) Tribe 2 on a ThinkPad T61
Rather incomplete guide for Ubuntu 7.10.

I suggest using the first guide, despite the version difference.

Matt

 

Thank you!

 

Hmm.. is Unbuntu 7.10 in beta?

 

No problem, glad to help.

No. In fact, it's in alpha - which is the testing stage even before beta. (They use the Greek alphabet.) It is scheduled for release on October 18, 2007.

Matt

 

i plan on doing the exact same thing with vista ultimate 64 and ubuntu with my new t61. let me know how it turns out for you

 

Instead of dual booting, you could always try running it inside VirtualBox.

 

I have XP Prof, Vista ultimate 64 and ubuntu 7.04......

If any of you guyz are interested or thinking of this set up, I strongly suggest that you do XP first, then Vista and then Ubuntu ( or redhat ) ..... Initially, I didnt follow this order and messed up.......maybe there are many other ways, but this is very simple and you wouldnt need any external boot managers....

also.......set your SATA hard drive in 'compatibility' mode while installing XP

hope this helps some one....

 

hiya, kinda tried this route (vista, then ubuntu, on a T61):

i started with the factory install, then during the Ubuntu Feisty install I shrank the Vista partition (sda2), and created 2 new primary partitions for Ubuntu's / (sda3) and swap (sda4).

Ubuntu boots fine from grub, but there are now 2 entries there labeled "Vista/Longhorn", 1 is for sda1, the other for sda2.

if I attempt to boot EITHER of these (which seems really odd), it takes me to the Lenovo Rescue and Recovery screen.

Not sure what the heck happened, but itll kinda suck if I end up having to do a factory restore to get Vista back. Any ideas? Did you guys do anything different to get everything working right?

 

Did you guys install Ubuntu Feisty Fawn from the LiveCD? I tried, but the installation didn't work at all. I kept getting an error. The error is posted about a lot on Ubuntu forums.

 

GRUB is picking the wrong paritions to boot into.

Do you know much about GRUB? What you need to do is:
Find the proper paritions,

GRUB represents them like:
title CentOS-4 i386 (2.6.9-55.EL)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-55.EL ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.9-55.EL.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd1,4)
chainloader +1

the 'root(hd0,0)' is where GRUB will boot from, above i have 2 entries in my grub boot file, that is /boot/grub/menu.lst

I have not gotten my Lenovo yet, but I bet the IBM recovery parition is #0, and Windows is #1

Since you only have 1 HD you can leave the first part as root(hd0. Then experiment and change it to root(hd0,1)...hd0,2... ect until you boot into something.

To make these changes you hit a key while grub counts down. Arrow up I do not remember the keystroke to edit the lines, but you then change that root() part and keep trying till you boot.

Once you do figure them out, WRITE IT DOWN!, then boot into linux, goto /boot/grub/ and edit menu.lst, and change the root() to the correct values.'

edit:
It could be confusing, root(hd0,1) is used for my LINUX parition ( which is also a seperate HD for me )
rootnoverify() is my Windows paritition. You will need to correct both to point to the proper paritions.

 

thanks otter,

im fairly familiar with grub. Vista is installed on hd0, partition 2, so i was using the predetermined grub settings (off the top of my head):

root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

which, if i understood correctly, should've booted the boot sector of the partition with the Vista install, which shouldve brought up vista's bootloader. I also tried root (hd0, 0), which also brings up the rescue and recovery thing. (hd0, 2) is my Ubuntu install so that's a no go.

i just did a system restore, and noticed that when vista boots it has a "hit F11 to access rescue and recovery" or whatever. it seems like, using grub, it defaults to this option, which might just forward me to the boot sector on the rescue partition...which would explain why (hd0,0) and (hd0,1) seem to bring up the same bootloader.

im about to reinstall grub and see if i get the same behavior, ill let you guys know.

 

"cannot access tty"? or something of that nature? the feisty live cd doesnt pick up the sata drive correctly. you have to go into the BIOS under sata options and switch the mode from AHCI to Compatibility. then the live cd should work.

after you've installed ubuntu, and run a complete update, you should be able to switch back to AHCI and boot okay

btw, if you the Nvidia 140M, the graphical installer will crash on you. you can use the text-based installer, or you can manually edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and switch the device driver from "nv" to "vesa". then type "startx" to restart it. that should do it, although i also added in my native monitor resolution "1280x800" and used a 24-bit default color depth i think (just to get a pretty installer, this wont affect the actual install at all, but you may need to make this change to keep the graphical installer from crashing)

 

Do you know if Vista is on a primary partition? I really have 0 experience with Vista so Iam not sure how it uses the disk.

'makeactive' will only select primary partitions, so that could what is causing the default.

May also try swapping root for rootnoverify, I am supprised root is working ( never worked for me with XP) . But then I mainly use server linux installs, and for those I believe we still use an earlier version of GRUB because of stability. The newer grub builds may natively be able to mount Vista.

Whenever I get my T61 I will be putting Linux on it most likely so when you figure this out let me know, I bet I will have the same problems.

 

That's it. I'll give it a try. Thanks.

 

all these are primary partitions. i think the makeactive may have been part of the issue. i finally got it working...seems like there were a couple issues involved and im not sure ive completely zero'd in what the actual issue was:

That thing with the rescue and recovery popping up....no idea. but after the restoring to factory conditions i was booting to Vista like normal

Luckily, the factory restore gives you the option of keeping new partitions intact, so my ubuntu install was still there and all i needed to do was reinstall grub. I installed grub to the boot sector of the linux partition (not the MBR) and set the linux partition to bootable, and removed the boot flag from the Vista partition.

The grub menu.lst was identical from before, except this time, when i tried to boot (hd0, 1), (with root (hd0, 1), chainloader +1) it loaded Vista as expected.

so i have no idea why it wasnt behaving right the first time. could be that i dorked up the Vista boot sector when i initially created the linux partition for Ubuntu, and that the factory restore fixed this.

1 more issue after that:

there were 2 additional grub options for my vista entry that i wasnt familiar with: makeactive, and savedefault. it seems like one of these was causing Vista to make itself the bootable partition, and remove the boot flag from the linux partition, bypassing grub on subsequent boots. with both these options removed, grub works perfectly

kind of a roundabout way to get to where i should've been after my initial install of ubuntu, but oh well...im used to this kind of thing happening by now. the important thing is Vista and linux now co-exist peacefully

 

lol

Imagine if Windows used GRUB! Windows XP's bootloader is just boring, GRUB seems so much better esspecially when you know how to customize it.