[Durham] dual boot install strategy and order

[Dougie Nisbet]

It's a long time since I've dual booted a PC. But I've ordered a bigger 
hard drive for my laptop and expect it RSN. I will install XP and Ubuntu 
(Karmic).

Any thoughts on tactics? As I say, it's been a while, and I used to 
hand-tune LILO to get things the way I wanted. Grub seems to be the 
default boot loader installed so I'm inclined to stick with that.

I assume the order is:

1. Partition and format
2. Install OS 1
3. Install OS 2

I don't intend having separate file systems on separate partitions. I 
think perhaps install XP first, then Ubuntu? Thoughts? How to partition. 
XP install disk?

This all assumes that the new disk works! And if it does, I shall have a 
spare 2.5" Fujitsu drive 80GB that may be looking for a new home. 
(Though actually when I checked the location and ease of swapping the 
disk out I couldn't believe how easy it was. I might even keep it as a 
spare in case of disk failure or with another distro on it)

On another note I have an external USB hard drive formatted as EXT4. 
Works great. I had wanted to format it VFAT but found that it choked on 
a lot of linux file names (especially long photo names) and I couldn't 
use tools such as rsync so I went with EXT4. It's a shame because it 
means I can't read it Windows boxes. Or can I? Any utilities that might 
do the magic?

can't make the feb meeting btw as I'm on holiday. Was I the only person 
that turned up in December? How did Jan go? see you in March!

cheers,

Dougie