[Nottingham] Running Ubuntu at Nottingham Uni

[Louise Brown]

Hi,

They're not overenthusiastic about it but they set up my machine with Windows and Ubuntu.  What they say is that they don't support Linux (maybe that explains the lack of response to my query).  I think if you've a good reason they'll do it for you.  In my case I'm running a cross-platform open source project so I have to know that the software builds in Linux before I release it.

Thanks for all the help everyone - I now have a working version of Ubuntu 12.04 and my Windows still works too!  :)

Louise

From: nottingham-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk [mailto:nottingham-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Cat Clarkson
Sent: 22 May 2012 14:56
To: Notts GNU/Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [Nottingham] Running Ubuntu at Nottingham Uni

Typical, 5 weeks before I stop working on University Campus and I discover you *can* get IT to let you dual boot! Ah well, might leave a little note in my desk drawer letting the next PhD student know!
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Barry Drake <ubuntu-advertising at gmx.com<mailto:ubuntu-advertising at gmx.com>> wrote:
On 22/05/12 13:26, ForkBombFluf wrote:
Upgrading in Linux shouldn't harm or rearrange anything in your bootloader (although the same can't always be said for Windows installations!) so moving to a newer long term support version should be good.  I think Barry's just advised a fresh install rather than an in place upgrade though, and I have to admit I'm curious what sort of issues he's encountered with upgrading.

Most of the issues were with people who really had no idea what they were doing and who didn't seem to know what 'backing up data' was.  But one or two of them did get the bootloader clobbered!  Some of the problems were due to a CD being made using Windows - the iso is very slightly oversized and they had tried to use it to upgrade rather than the updater.  But I think the most common problem was that the upgrade failed part way through possibly because of connection failure and left them with an un-bootable system.

Another problem was those who thought they had Ubuntu 'installed' when they were using wubi.  Upgrades in a wubi system just don't seem to work most of the time.

My advice has always been to back up all data - in the Windows system as well if they are dual booting.  Then to run 12.04 from the live DVD to make sure it's OK on their hardware, and only then do the installation using the defaults right the way through.  Folk who are not geeks trying to partition manually always seem to have got it wrong.  Mostly they have ended up with the bootloader in a partition and not in the boot sector ....  I've been hanging out on: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu - if anyone is interested, the first few days after 12.04 release date say it all!  Oh, and then there are the folk who use the 64 bit version and then can't install a whole lot of apps they want to run ....

myunity is a neat little app that lets you re-size the launcher among other things ...  well worth getting.  Also, if you haven't used it before, press and hold the Super key (the one that was formerly called the 'Windows' key for legacy reasons).

Having said that, I didn't encounter any problems at all myself, but then I always do a clean install as an easy way of keeping my system tidy.


Regards,        Barry.

--
Barry Drake is a member of the the Ubuntu Advertising team.
http://ubuntuadverts.org/

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