Quick Ubuntu Questions, XPS M1530, Nvidia 8600m GT

Hey guys, so here the situation,

I have successfully managed to dualboot Ubutnu 8.04 and Vista on my Dell Xps M1530 Laptop, so far I am extremely impressed with the Ubuntu OS, however I have just a couple of quick questions that will hopefully be easy to solve .

My Harddisk is partitioned so that vista has 120Gb( obviously in NTFS), Ubuntu has approximately 50Gb (in .ext3 format or whatever) and a 4gb swap. Now after using Ubuntu for a short while I was wondering about the possibility or making a shared drive (NTFS) for MP3's videos and the like, which I could access easily from both OS's. My question is this, is it possible to...

Using Gparted, shrink, both partitions, merge the free unallocated space, and then create a new partition in NTFS that will store audio, video etc...? will I be able to do that without having to reinstall OS's etc. also I am unsure about my primary partition limit as I'm aware you can only have 4 primary partitions, does the swap count as one or is the a Logical partition.t some of the readings

Also, I'm watching my system moniter and slightly concerned about some of the readings, i'm running Intel Core 2 Duo's each at 2.4Ghz, which I was under the impression would be plentiful for ubuntu. However according to the moniter, one is quite often at 80-90% whilst the other will be 5-10%, and then the percentages will arbutarily flip, the other one will sky-rocket and the other will respectively fall etc, this cycle will continue regardless of how many programs I am running etc. one thing I have noticed is that the sum of both %'s of each core will make 100, weird huh? Why is this, is this common for C2D with ubuntu? also on a similar note, my swap partition never has any % use, again, is this normal? I technically have no idea what swap is...

screenshot of system moniter:

http://img516.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot1uj0.png

Last query concerning my GPU, im running a Nvidia Geforce 8600m GT with 256Mb of GDDR3 RAM. Again, I thought that this would be plentiful for running Ubuntu with all the trimming , upon installation it was recognised as a standard VGA adapter or whatever, which was expected. And I managed to fund / use the “Restricted driver utility to download the drivers for it, it is now recognised, and is apparently functioning perfectly. I'm running my laptop at native res (1680 by 1050) at 50Hz, and the desktop effects are on extra or the equivalent. Now, my problems are as follows:

there is a small ½ second delay from closing, minimizing, maximizing a window of program, like a slight jutter almost. (this doesn't happen when effects are disabled, so im assuming its a graphics issue), thus resulting in the whole Ubuntu experience feeling sluggish and juttery, in comparision to my fresh vista install which is respectively Hella-fast. Ive noticed that in vista my screens refresh rate is at 60Hz, could this be a possible reason for why im experiencing juttering prehaps see as Ubuntu it is at 50Hz, I cannot change it in Ubuntu however...

Also there seems to be a slight redish shadow that borders my menues and windows. Ive attached a screenshot so you know what I mean...

Screenshot of weird red outline/shadow:

http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshotdg0.png

what is that?...

anyway, last question the volume control in Ubuntu seems to be ... well “non-linear” I think is the best way to describe it, i.e. The last centile of my volume control creates audibly a 50%change in volume... It is the same on each level on the volume control, master, PMC etc... any ideas?

Anyway, thanks a lot guys,

if anyone can give me any idea concerning any of the above I would be extremely grateful

Tom

 

Yes, you can repartition it to do what you want. I just have it set so that my documents folder on my vista partition is automounted so it acts like another partition in ubuntu. The Red outlines is from either compiz or the human theme. Its supposed to be there. The system monitor does that when some processes have to wait for others to finish on the other core.

 

beadmaster -
You have quite a few questions in one post!

The only partition on your hard drive that NEEDS to be a primary partition is the Windows OS. Windows can't boot from an extended partition. So what I do is shove Windows partition aside, then create one extended partition out of the free space, then you're free to do what you will with it.

I'm not sure about this, but believe that if you just let it auto-install, Ubuntu will create a primary for the OS and an extended partition for the swap. You may want to start over again. Using a GParted LiveCD wipe Ubuntu and swap, resize the NTFS partition if necessary (there's always a risk that Windows will get confused and become unbootable so I'm hesitant to suggest tempting the fates) then create one extended partition. Inside that partition you would at the minimum create an ext3 partition for Ubuntu, a small linuxswap partition for swap, and your shared partition. If it were me I'd create an ext3 partition and mount it as /, another ext3 mounted as /home, another as swap, then the shared. BTW, you said NTFS for the shared; did you mean vfat? If you're going to format it as NTFS I'm not sure what advantage there is to making it separate from the Windows partition? A while back Ubuntu couldn't read NTFS but I know that has improved somewhat.

 

Linux will read and write NTFS perfectly fine.

 

Ahh ok, cheers guys, ye i know many questions lol, ill have a go at some of the suggestions

 

Yep, what halfhalo said. Don't need anymore partitions....Ubuntu can read the ntfs partition just fine. I actually copy some things over from partition to partition just because I have much space and to have a copy...but it's up to you. Or, you can just link any Vista folders on your desktop and choose your icon....diff ways to do it.

 

windows can also be made to recognize ext 2/3

just install this: http://www.fs-driver.org/

 

Did you get your graphics issues sorted? I'm considering buying that laptop second hand and the graphics under Ubuntu are my main concern. Is it spinning along beautifully now, or still a bit jumpy?

 

for pink shadow fix look here

you can set the refresh rate in system>preferences>advanced desktop effects settings>general options display settings tab. im not sure it helps anything but better at the right setting than the wrong one.

and for the sluggishness you can disable the powermizer untill nvidia comes up with a driver with decent 2d performance. try mongo' s post in the link

 

The red outline is NOT supposed to be there, it is supposed to be black: it's a shadow, the reddish hue is due to a bug in the nvidia driver.