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Old Zorin Forum archive → Installation

Loading to new blank partition

Baz P

Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:44:49 pm

When I got a new hard drive some years ago I partitioned it into three in the hope that, one day, I'd be able to give Linux a try as I'm not over keen on giving money to billionaires.

I'd read some good reports about Zorin OS recently (particularly "good" for me was the apparent ease with which it could be installed and used as I'm no computer geek).

Today, after a bit of a struggle, I managed to install it (I think!) on one of said partitions but I didn't get a dual boot option when I restarted my computer. Worse than that the drive on which I installed it has disappeared from Windows and, when attempting to investigate in Windows Disk Management the volume label has disappeared and cannot be restored - the only option I have is "Delete Partition".

As I've already suggested I'm not an expert but could somebody give me a clue as to where I went wrong?

I've studied the "Sticky" - How to install GNU/Linux alongside Windows - but there doesn't appear to be an option of installing Zorin on an existing partition. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It it's of any assistance the two partitions I created years ago are both empty. The version of Windows I have is Windows XP Professional.

Thanks in anticipation.

Wolfman

Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:04:27 am

Hi Baz,

you should have in 3 partitions in total for a Linux install, 1 for root ( "/" denotes the mount point ). 1 for home ( "/home" = mount point ) and lastly a swap partition which has no mount point.

Please see this How-To and let us know if you have any further questions!!.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic172128.html

And a partition How-To:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

If you don't have a partition tool, you can download the free "Gparted" tool from here and create a bootable CD:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Regards Wolfman :D

madvinegar

Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:13:40 am

Also, it is very important to select to which partition you want the grub menu to be installed!

Baz P

Wed Apr 04, 2012 3:51:30 pm

I'm pleased to say that I've got it working now and I'm pretty impressed - except for having to learn how everything works and where everything is after years with Windows.

I don't think I created a "/home" partition but I did see something about GRUB during the upload.

Thanks very much for your help.

Baz P

Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:24:21 am

swarfendor437 wrote:Your '/home' will be in the main partition of the drive, along with root ('/'). There should be a 'swap file' ('linux swap') somewhere on there.
GRUB stands for 'GRand Unified Bootloader' and basically is the GNU/Linux equivalent to Windows Bootloader (Boot.ini) that resides normally in the MBR. It is possible to install GRUB at the start of a partition - then you get into the realms of CHAINLOADING which I have yet to master but it is supposed to be straightforward - once you know how!
OK so differences:
1. Home: Think of this as your Documents Folder - it's all your stuff all in one place - 'Your Home'!
2. Control Centre/Center: Similar to Control Panel but not as cluttered (cf. Windows 7!)
3. Ubuntu Software Centre/Center: Think of this as a 'standalone' 'Add/Remove Programs'
4. System: a. Preferences; this is where you get to tweak the computer settings that meet your needs.
b. Administration: Control Users and what Groups they are part of, Printing, Updates, Additionlal Drivers (Wireless and Graphics), Synaptic Package Manager (alternative to Ubuntu Software Centre/Center) - just search for an application e.g. enter 'Word Processor' and see how many results you get! and a whole lot more - usually, anything under System | Administration will require your login password to elevate you to 'Root' (=Administrator - a bit like the 'Run as' command in Windows).
Please feel free to come back and ask any questions you want - that's what the forums are for!
Enjoy Zorin!

Thanks very much for your help - I think I may have complicated matters with my imported files when I started to set Zorin up but I'm having a bit of a poke around and, unlike Windows, it seems as though it's difficult to make "fatal" mistakes when "playing".