Partitioning dual boot system questions

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Ubuntu Support Template

Ubuntu Version:
Lubuntu 24.04

Desktop Environment (if applicable):
HP 8730W currently running Windows XP.

Problem Description:

I successfully set up my desktop system as a dual boot Linux/Windows system without a hitch. Alas, I haven’t been having the same luck with my laptop. The system is a HP 8730W loaded with Windows XP (I have legacy software I want to still use) on a single 500GB hard drive. It uses Bios not UEFI and uses the NTFS file system. When the Linux install program gets to the partitioning screen I click the install alongside option but the Next button does not light so that option is not available even though it’s listed as such. So here are my questions:

  • I read in some email threads that it is better to partition the drive via Windows XP prior to trying to load Linux. True?
  • Why is the install alongside option not working?
  • What is the difference between “install alongside” versus the manual install that I did with my desktop?

Thanks,

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I’d not be using Windows XP to partition a drive; it’s been end of life for more than a decade, so I’d not trust it with modern/larger drives; though if the machine came with XP and you’ve still got the original Microsoft Windows install; in that case I may do that (if it came with the machine; it should work perfectly well with the hardware it was sold with).

I may actually use partition software before I start the installer; though the reason I’d probably do that is that I’ve used gparted far more than other partition tools, thus I know it, and hope I’m less likely to make a mistake if I use that tool, ie. familiarity with the tool being why I’d not use the installer (how many of us use installers that often??)

FYI: In Quality Assurance testing I’ve used the calamares installer hundreds of times without problem, including with Windows XP machines (I still have one), but I’ve used gparted thousands of times or a multiple of the number of times I’ve used the installer.

If the installed system is encrypted, in an unclean state, or a number of other reasons - that option will NOT be available, as it cannot shrink the existing file-system safely, thus its preventing you from potentially damaging it (ie. it’s protecting you!). If I see that, I tend to want to work out what is wrong, check its a valid file-system, check your partition table isn’t already full (another reason you can’t add extra partitions maybe its impossible as no space in partition table!)…

I actually prefer “Manual Partitioning” as I can tell the installer exactly what I want; where as with the Install alongside I only get to select a partition that will be shrunk, so that space for a new partition can created… They can be used for the same thing, but with Manual Partitioning you’re in control & do what you want, the Install Alongside being an automated (but more limited) option.

https://manual.lubuntu.me/lts/1/1.3/installation.html

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I hope that you are not accessing the internet with Windows XP?

Is the existing OS 32-bit or 64-bit?

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I do not think XP even had its own partitioning tool. Newer Windows does and we normally suggest you use it with newer NTFS partitions. I use gparted and think I used it back in XP days, but part of reason for suggesting Windows partitioning tools is that is any issue with the NTFS partition and gparted does not work, user blames Linux, not the real Windows issue.

BIOS boot on one drive has several things you need to know. You only have one MBR (per drive). So only one boot loader can be installed. Windows will not boot Ubuntu, but grub boot loader will boot working Windows. Linux tools cannot fix most Windows issues, so if Windows needs fixes, grub probably will not boot it and you need a Windows repair disk.

Or you need both Windows repair flash drive (if system boots from flash drive) and your Ubuntu installer to make possible repairs. And you must have good backups of both systems.

With an old BIOS only system a lighter weight flavor is probably better. Ubuntu not really designed for DVD install, and does not fit anymore. Latest Ubuntu is full featured and intended for newer systems probably within latest 10 years unless old system very highly configured. UEFI has been standard since 2012.

Even is XP is 32 bit, you may have 64 bit system. I used 32 bit Ubuntu on my XP desktop system and upgraded every 6 months. Had to do new install to convert to 64 bit Ubuntu in 2009. Only done new installs since then and use LTS versions as main working install.

https://ubuntu.com/download/flavoursFlavors
Light weight flavors:
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Budgie
Flavors of Ubuntu only come with three years of supported life (five years applies to Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server but not flavors)
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/flavorshttps://ubuntu.com/download/flavoursFlavors
Light weight flavors:
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Budgie
Flavors of Ubuntu only come with three years of suppohttps://ubuntu.com/download/flavoursFlavors
Light weight flavors:
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Budgie
Flavors of Ubuntu only come with three years of supported life (five years applies to Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server but not flavors)https://ubuntu.com/download/flavoursFlavors
Light weight flavors:
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Budgie
Flavors of Ubuntu only come with three years of supported life (five years applies to Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server but not flavors)
Flavors - Ubuntu Community Hub
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/c/flavorsrted life (five years applies to Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server but not flavors)
Flavors - Ubuntu Community Hub

Acouple of years ago, my new Dell laptop died & had to go back to Dell for repair. I needed laptop and pulled out my 2006 XP Dell. I had last installed Ubuntu in 2012. New Ubuntu would not install, server did install & I was able to add lightweight Fallback gui. But Kubuntu installed & was functional but very slow. Then I used my external SSD with full install of Kubuntu and while not speedy system very functional.

Or I suggest a full install on an external SSD, if system can boot from USB. I make my own by buying a $25 USB to M.2 adapter and SSD/NVMe drive.

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It isn’t clear from your post if you have anywhere to install Linux. You say the drive is formatted ntfs. You can’t have a functioning Linux system on an ntfs partition any more than you could have a functioning windows system on a Linux filesystem. If you don’t have free space on the drive, I would expect the error you report that there is no option to install alongside

You need to create unallocated space either from XP (I don’t know what tool it may have to do that, if any) or by using gparted as suggested above which may be on your install USB Just did a quick online search and the Lubuntu site indicates it used KDE Partition Manager, link below. According to this link, you should be able to access it by simply typing: partitionmanager in a terminal. You may to preface it with sudo.

https://manual.lubuntu.me/stable/3/3.1/3.1.6/kde_partitionmanager.html

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Additional information based on your comments:

  • The reason for adding Linux as a dual boot is to avoid accessing the internet with XP.
  • The machine is old enough to have come with either XP, Windows 7 or Vista. Windows 7 64 bit was previously installed but there are 32 bit XP drivers on the HP website.
  • I believe my Linux version is 64 bit and my XP version is 32 bit so that is one potential problem.
  • I haven’t checked the partitioning table yet to see if it is full, but only one partition shows up in the Linux install screens.

I manually partitioned my dual boot desktop system. I have to reboot to switch back and forth, which is ok because I never use Windows 10. It came with the system when I bought it, I kept it on in case I couldn’t get Linux to run. Eventually I will convert the desktop to Linux only.

The laptop is different, I want to be able to switch back and forth (if that’s possible) without having to reboot. I would also like to be able to pass data between the 2. So lets say I get install alongside to work. Will both systems be loaded simultaneously? How does one switch between them? I plan to load my browser in Linux with Clam TK. Would that provide protection for my XP load from viruses e.g. can they “hop” a dual boot system and infect XP?

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I have always dual booted, but to run both systems at once is a virtual install. Typically used by those with servers as they take a lot less resources than a desktop. Never commended for gamers as system is slower. You need enough RAM to allocate some to each and typically faster drive. Or an old XP era system my not run virtual installs well. graphics is always a performance issue with every virtual machine solution, everywhere.

I stopped using XP when I added an SSD as I had to change to AHCI and XP did not have AHCI driver. And I was down to one program, and the nearest Linux equivalent was good enough. XP was taking 3 minutes to boot, down from 5 after running chkdsk from Windows 7( Ubuntu ~40 sec), but had issues with NTFS as 7 has a different header in NTFS. And adding SSD was one of my better choices to improve system.

Those with virtual installs often use Virtualbox, but the server gurus use often suggest KVM+libvirt+virt-manager for hypervisor which is more complex but then more functional.

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That is NOT a problem; a machine here that has XP has the 32-bit Windows XP on it, as OEMs paid $5 less for the 32-bit version of Windows, and knew that consumers understood $5 far more than the 32-bit vs 64-bit question, thus 32-bit XP was the norm!

The only complication is if the machine has a 32bit uEFI (ie. early few months!) and 64bit OSes on it are possible, but Ubuntu doesn’t out of the box support that difference, but there are very few boxes that have 32-bit uEFI, and as Windows XP has no knowledge of uEFI (it’s too old!) it won’t be in play anyway (unless it was force-installed in an unusual way & XP wasn’t what the machine came with; and whomever installed it probably has required details here; by force install I’ve had machines that came with Windows Vista pre-installed, allowing the users to opt revert that to XP, but how they did that seemed to vary by make/model).

Dual booting mandates a reboot; that is what it means; ie. dual booting refers to multiple OS installs, where you select which will operate at boot by a boot loader (Ubuntu uses GRUB for this). Only a single OS can run at a time.

As @oldfred has already indicated, your alternative is to have your ONE OS running be a HOST OS, that runs virtual machines within its control; ie. VMs. Most modern OSes will run as a HOST OS, and the limit of VMs mostly boils down the your machines hardware resources (esp. RAM & CPU; unless you’re extremely patient as results can be slow if you are lacking in resources).

My XP machine has 3 OSes that are used via dual boot; the original Microsoft Windows XP the box came with, plus 2 different releases of Ubuntu (Lubuntu actually, but I think of them as Ubuntu). I wouldn’t use that box for running VMs, as the result isn’t fast or nice to play; but thankfully I don’t have to as that is only one of the [slower] boxes on this desk.

On that XP machine, I can access the XP/NT file-system (NTFS) from either Ubuntu install; I just rarely do it (XP is only ever booted to play two old games, one of which I can run under Ubuntu anyway, but it’s a somewhat buggy program and when it crashes, leaves the monitors in a low-res state that’s annoying, so I boot XP & just play it there and it doesn’t impact my other displays should the game crash). If I was doing it regularly; I often preferred creating an extra FAT (vFAT?) partition for file-transfer between OSes, but intended usage will dictate what is the best approach.

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Since your goal is eventually to end up with linux, I would recommend this;

  1. Learn how to backup your entire harddisk with an external tool e.g Clonezilla on a usb stick.
  2. Backup your harddisk to external storage (not just the partitions).
  3. Install linux and choose the entire harddisk.
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… unless you insist on dual-booting for whatever reason. IMHO, the time to let go of Windows XP happened more than a decade ago.

What exactly is your goal by keeping XP? Nostalgia, perhaps? There’s not a single piece of software that can run in XP nowadays that doesn’t also has a native Linux version and/or plently of newer, better, alternatives.

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Thanks for your responses. It looks like I am going with a manual partition. For those making comments on XP. The problem isn’t just software. I have a piece of hardware and its supporting software that was designed in the XP era. The hardware either requires an IDE card slot or a cardbus connector, which I don’t see very much anymore though my laptop conveniently has one. It would cost me $1000 or more to replace the hardware so its worth the effort here.

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I am very happy that you underlined the fact your dual-boot requirement is a hard requirement to ensure continued availability of an existing, useful, potentially irreplaceable, functionality!

Some people tend to lose sight of the fact that the User (Individual or Organization) have critical requirements that cannot be cast aside as simple

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