Ubuntu 12.04 installation. Dual boot with Windows

The wait for Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) has come to an end. If you want to experience the Ubuntu 12.04 environment, you can download its iso file from here and install it comfortably by following a few steps. Installing Ubuntu 12.04 is all the same as installing any of the other versions of Ubuntu with just a touch changed GUI.

To install Ubuntu 12.04 you must have at least 10GB of free space as a pre-requisite .The steps given here can also be used to dual boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 7.To dual boot Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows OS, first you got to empty any one of your drives having at least 10GB of total capacity. Then format it to make it free (shown as green is Disk Management in Windows). Ubuntu 12.04 can be dual booted with Window 7, XP or Vista. Given here are the step-by-step instructions to install Ubuntu 12.04 along with relevant screenshots.

Step by step instruction  for Ubuntu installation -

1) Boot from a boot-able Ubuntu USB or CD(DVD is recommended).

Select Install Ubuntu 

2) The following Ubuntu screen will appear.

Ubuntu 12.04 installation step 2.

Leave the "Install this third party software" option unchecked as you can download this software later on and Continue

3) The following window will appear. If you select the option "Erase disk and install Ubuntu", the already installed OS gets deleted/erased and Ubuntu's installation gets underway. In case you want to dual boot Ubuntu 12.04 select the option "Something else".

Step 3 of Ubuntu 12.04 installation.

4) Then the following window appears. In this window select the disk drive in which you intend to install the Ubuntu 12.04.In this window, a drive is shown as free space. Select the drive and click on change option.

Step 4: Select the drive in which Ubuntu has to be installed

In the options, "Device for boot loader Installation" select the master hard-drive of your system(usually it does not require any change).

5) After clicking on change option, the following window will appear.

Step 5: Set the drive size here.

Define the size of the partition (8GB is recommended). In the “Use as” option select “Ext4 journaling file system”, the latest file system in Linux and then select mount point as “/“. Press OK.

6) The next window which you will see, appears the same as the window in step 4. The only addition here the sticking up of the Ext4 and "/" at their respective positions ie, in the Type and Mount point columns ( corresponding to the drive you have selected) . Make sure you have these options next to your selected drive else you got to check your taken steps again. Once sure, click on "Install Now".

Note: The method shown above is a simple guide. You can also create additional partitions if you want, namely, /boot, /home, etc. In that case, you will have to divide your available free space accordingly. Normally, "/" should be given around 8GB space as all the installed packages go into it and remaining space can be given to other partitions.

8) Now, you will be asked to select the time zone and keyboard layout of your system.

9) In the last window, give the name and password of your system(you need to give an alphanumeric password and obviously remember it for future use) and after this click "Next".

10) With this your Ubuntu installation is done!!. Reboot and you shall see the Grub menu at the start, allowing you to choose the OS from which you want to boot up.

Note: About the Swap partition, now a days laptops and desktop come with a large RAM, it is not advisable to use swap partition. Just try to keep things simple, swap partition can be created later on.

See here how to create Swap partition.

If you find yourself stuck at any of the steps mentioned above, do post your queries as comments here.

Posted in: Linux,Ubuntu,Ubuntu 12.04