Ubuntu Intrepid installation problems

My toshiba A300 07G notebook has problem when installing ubuntu intrepid. The procedure by apcmag of dual booting vista with linux(vista installed first) says to first shrink at least 10 gb. I shrinked 11 gb but the problem here is that according to the guide it should show "Guided - longest continuous free space" as an option to install ubuntu on. I also tried doing it in the manual way but the free allocated space of 11 gb is recognized but unusable when clicked on it shows "no root file system" or something like that. What should i do to get ubuntu installed?

 

I always install it using "Manual" partitioning. Just find the 11 GB of free space and formet it with ext3 and set the mount point.

 

The times I've seen the "no root file system" message were always because of formatting. Xubuntu had more problems with this than Ubuntu. Take another look at that free space - is is unallocated? ntfs?
The most reliable method to get Ubuntu to recognize the space is to pre-format the area as ext3. That can be done with a GParted LiveCD.

 

no root file system means u have not set a mount point where your filesystem would be installed.. sort of like the C: drive on windows .. if you look closely at the partitioning tool you would see filesystem format (or something like that not quite sure) set that to ext3.. then you would see mount point.. if you click on the options. u would see various options.. select "/" which is the sign for the root partition on linux. hence the 11 GB free partition u created would be mounted on / = in windows terms ur C drive would be the 11GB.. but C in LInux is / hope that helps.

 

thank u for replying so i cant set it to ext3 from vista as when installing it doesnt allow to do anything as ubuntu recognizes this as an unusable and unchangeable partition so i think ill have to use Gparted LiveCD.

 

Yes, correct, Vista won't format unallocated space to ext3. Microsoft would like to squash Linux like a bug. No way are they going to include features that might help you install the foreign invader.

 

that would be the best choice of action, unless you have a partition manager in windows (like partition magic) to deal with it. im not too sure about vista, but even if you could shrink the vista partition and leave unallocated space, that may work too.