# Ubuntu - is it for me?



## Nick W (2 May 2007)

Quite a lot of people are saying how good Ubuntu is, and I'm wondering if it's something I should look at, given that my just-over-1-year-old laptop is starting to suffer from the effects of bit-rot.

My Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 1.86GHz Pentium processor and 504MB of RAM. The 80GB disk is less than 50% full. There is also a NEC DVD+-RW model ND-6650A and an SD card port.

I am wirelessly linked to my home network which has another DELL pc of a little age, an Epson Stylus C64 printer on a wireless print server, and a QMS 330 A3 colour laser printer. I use a USB disk drive to back up. I also have a Palm with which I need to HotSync.

I need to be able to run QuickBooks, SketchUp, Alibre, CutList and the usual e-mail and officey type applications (I have OpenOffice as well as MS Office, and am prepared to drop the latter). 

Is there anything there that precludes me from using Ubuntu?
How good is WINE? There are other Windoze apps that I like to play with, but these are not necessarily swap-over killers.
If the worst comes to the worst, how easy would it be to swap back again?
Could I run the two OSs side by side easily for a trial period?

I used to work in IT (expired MCSD :roll: ), but managed to avoid having to get into systems management, and have no wish to start now, so the whole process has to be pretty painless. In particular I have a positive hatred of having anything to do with case-sensitive operating systems; I will not do it, I would rather cut out, and eat my own liver.

Or should I just save up for a Mac? Or even let sleeping dogs lie?


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## Adam (2 May 2007)

Nick W":3tw7vxla said:


> In particular I have a positive hatred of having anything to do with case-sensitive operating systems; I will not do it, I would rather cut out, and eat my own liver.



That really did make me LOL.

Excellent =D> 

Adam


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## mr (2 May 2007)

Hi Nick 
I've been using Ubuntu through the last two releases, am now running version 7.04. In my experience pretty much everything about it has been easy to use and all my peripherals have worked. This includes scanner/ printer / digicamera / usb sticks / external dvd burner. The only thing I have found which doesnt work is the iPod. At least the iPod will work as a mountable drive but iTunes will not run under emulation. Apparently a linux version is in the works. Re palm pilot there is a facility inbuilt to Ubuntu 7.04 to connect & sync with palm os devices. I haven't tried it but I could if required. 

Re Windows emulation, I have found that Wine will run most things. There is additionally another emulator called Crossover office (not open source). I havent tried the latter. 
I use Open Office exclusively and the only problems I have had are opening documents saved with MSOffice as the new default format in Vista which is *.XDOC I believe. Im not overly concerned about this seeing as XP MS office users can't open them either without a layer of fiddling. I don't know about the other applications you mention with the exception of Sketchup which is said to run to some extent under Wine emulation. I cant tell you how well it runs because I dont use it I'm afraid. 

You can run Ubuntu and Windows side by side if you want to. The Ubuntu installation proceedure will walk you through this option if you decide to do it. Personally I have a dual boot machine though I rarely boot Windows. My Ubuntu system will happily access and read files stored on the NTFS formatted drives and will reach accross the network to deal with files on my XP based laptop as well. The installation process is simplicity itself, none of the previous linux installation horrors to deal with. Reason I mention this is that you could conceivably install Ubuntu along side windows, leave your data files on the windows partition and work with them from Ubuntu. The files would be accessible from both systems. (though they wouldnt easily be available to Windows if stored on the ubuntu partition) If you work in this way you could then remove the Ubuntu partition if you dont get on with it at no risk to any data that you have on the windows partition. 

Another thing worth mentioning is that you can run Ubuntu as a live boot system, download and burn the image to cd and then you can boot to Ubuntu from the cd without having to install it. This would allow you to play with it and test your peripherals and so on. If you find you dont get on with it or your printer won't work or whatever simply yank the cd out, reboot and you're back in windows. 

I'm afraid being a linux system it is case sensitive at least at terminal level.

re Macs personally though they look pretty I can't see why, given the available alternatives, anyone would want to pay a premium price for it.

Hope that helps a bit. Shout if theres any other questions.

Cheers Mike


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## ByronBlack (2 May 2007)

Mac is stress free (generally) hence the premium price, and for the fact that apple engineer the majority of the hardware so no poxy driver issues. 

Pays your money and take your choice.

I have an intel mac, and have a windows install on parallels which runs better than my now defunct dedicated windows machine.

I'm intrigued by ubuntu though and will test that out via bootcamp - how's about then: Three Os's on one machine - thats value for money!


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## Dave S (2 May 2007)

I agree with Mike with respect to Macs. Also, I've not found them at all intuitive to use when I have had the misfortune to come into contact with them. Personally I'd steer clear.

Ubuntu is one distribution I've not used. It has gained a reputation for being easy to use. I also haven't used Wine. I do, however, have quite a bit of experience with VMWare Workstation which is virtual machine software. Effectively it emulates a pc, onto which you can install the OS of your choice. So I have a Linux distribution with VMWare loaded. I have several virtual machines set up, one with XP, one with 2000 and one with 98. With enough system resources I can run all of these at the same time, all networked. 

Ok - sounds a bit geeky, but when I worked in science, my desktop ran Linux with an XP virtual machine on top. I had ocean circulation simulations running for days at a time under Linux and was able to use the XP machine as normal. It is a robust solution. The downside is that vmware doesn't expose all the system resources to the virtual machines. This means I can't do video editing, for example, on my virtual machines, so I keep the dual boot option for this. (There are, of course, Linux options for this, but I've yet to investigate them).

I think the cost of VMWare is currently about £85 for the download version. It might not be the thing for you - although it's pretty easy to use, it sounds like you don't want to spend much time tinkering. However, I throw it into the ring as something to consider.

Dave


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## Nick W (2 May 2007)

Thanks Chaps. A good deal to ponder there.


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## Nick W (3 May 2007)

OK, so I've made an Ubuntu CD, but my system still boots to Windoze. Is it because it is a DVD drive, or is there some setting, somewhere that I need to change?


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## wizer (3 May 2007)

you need to set your bios to boot from the cd drive


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## Nick W (3 May 2007)

WiZeR":2s5wfl1f said:


> you need to set your bios to boot from the cd drive





NickW":2s5wfl1f said:


> Uh?


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## wizer (3 May 2007)

when the PC first boots you will get either a boot option or an option to enter the bios. In the bios screens you need to set the boot order. The first boot option needs to be the IDE CD/DVD drive


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## mr (3 May 2007)

On booting the machine hit (usually) F1 to enter the bios setup, then locate the drive boot order and set the cd rom device to be the first bootable drive, save and exit. What this means is that when you boot on future the machine will look at the cd drive first and then at the hard drive if there's nothing bootable in the cd drive. Meaning that you can boot something like an Ubuntu live distro rather than Windows.

Cheers Mike


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## Nick W (3 May 2007)

Thanks Mike, that sorted it, though it was F2 on my machine (but what's an F between friends?). Next task is to work out how to get to access my wireless network.

I'll take it that the sluggish performance is down to it being run from CD for the mo.


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## mr (3 May 2007)

IT can only run as fast as your cd drive can spin at the moment. Everything has to be loaded into ram before use etc so it may well be a bit sluggish. You should be able to set up your network connections from the network settings widget which you'll find at system | administration | network 

Cheers Mike


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## stewart (3 May 2007)

Does all/most software work with ubuntu? I'm thinking of stuff from serif, photoshop, world of warcraft?
Have got a copy on cd and like the look of it but don't want to instal it if software is limited


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## mr (3 May 2007)

Hi Stewart

NO idea about Serif, (what is it ?) 
WOW does run 
Photoshop does run apparently though I havent tried it. 

The point though is that there are open source alternatives to most things. Photoshop for example can be replaced with the Gimp, Illustrator with Xara Xtreme, MSOffice with Open Office and so on. Theres very little that I've run across that can't be replaced with an open source alternative. Macromedia / Adobe Director can't which is the only thing I can think of at the moment. 

Will your cd boot? If its a proper Canonical Ubuntu cd then it will and you can try it out without installing or changing anything on your machine. 
Cheers Mike


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## stewart (3 May 2007)

Thanks for the reply, Mike.
I've put ubuntu onto cd and can boot from it - I'll have to instal it to a hard drive to see if my serif programs work - they make a photoeditor and dtp program i use, as well as a movie editing one.
I like the look of beryl but can't work out how to instal it  I'll have a play with ubuntu first and then try beryl later!
Thanks for your help


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## mr (3 May 2007)

Hi Stewart 
You wont be able to install anything to run under Ubuntu - ie Beryl unless you have installed Ubuntu itself. Running from cd allows you to run the various parts of the system & the apps that are packed with the version you have on disk. Other bits & bobs have to be installed onto an installed system if you see what I mean. Once you have that installation I've found most further application installations to be quite simple - including Beryl which I was having horrors about before I did it. Having said that regarding Beryl (& other apps which depend on your graphics card) your milage might vary, you might find it a nightmare, to a certain extent it might depend on your pc and the hardware in it. 

Cheers Mike


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## Steve Maskery (4 May 2007)

All this is double-dutch to me, so I went a-hunting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SWTW6CAYFQ

I'm not really any the wiser, but it looks good.

Will it run Adobe Premier Pro?

Cheers
Steve


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## wizer (4 May 2007)

Steve it is unlikely that it will run as well and as easily as it does on a windows based machine. That said there are applications much better than premier pro which run much faster and more efficiently on a linux based machine. I run Linux and XP side by side at work and only really use Linux for bespoke work related applications. XP has never really been a problem for me tbh. Only thing that bothers me about windows based PC's is that they are resource hungry.

That said I am going to try ubuntu on my laptop (almost exclusively used for web browsing) until Vista is a bit more established.


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## Steve Maskery (4 May 2007)

WiZeR":1nopalry said:


> That said there are applications much better than premier pro which run much faster and more efficiently on a linux based machine.
> 
> PC's ... are resource hungry.



Do you have any recommendations?

Cheers
Steve


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## wizer (4 May 2007)

I have only dabbled myself so i'd recommend a little further research. But those that I know of are:

http://lives.sourceforge.net/
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3
http://www.kinodv.org/

We use an application here at work (very large media company) but it's bespoke to the company.


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## ByronBlack (4 May 2007)

i just checked out the video and have to ask myself - whats the point?

bendy windows, drop effect etc etc.. all graphical pointlessness that doesn't achieve anything apart from slowing you and the computer down.. also all the window handling wizadry is a rip-off of what mac Os X has been doing for about the past 5 years.

I'm all for innovation, but this is not it. It's just eye candy, what about things like decent backup, driver management, file finding facilities (all of which OS X has - and i'm not sure if linux does) - but these are generally the things that need to be improved upon, not fancy 3d desktops, fish and bendy windows.

Rant over.

I shall still be installing Ubuntu (without beryl) just to see how it runs with open source alternatives - I almost exclusively run open source open the mac and I think they are excellent so it will be interesting to see how Ubuntu works.


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## Gill (4 May 2007)

The one thing that deters me from using Ubuntu is that I wouldn't know how to connect to the internet with it. My ISP is AOL which, I understand, can be problematic.

Can anyone tell me how to hook up to the internet through AOL using Ubuntu?

Gill


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## mr (4 May 2007)

ByronBlack":2smyo855 said:


> It's just eye candy, .



Correct 
While Beryl is pretty, thats all it is - it has little real value. Rather like mac prettiness its pointless at heart at the moment. There may come a day when the idea is useful for something but that day isnt here yet. Beryl is just another applcation really, if you dont want what it does dont use it the underlying system is unaffected. 

Gill, either get a better ISP or prepare to throw away the AOL proprietary connection widget. Set up PPPOE settings manually Try it with a live cd perhaps and see how you get on.

Cheers Mike


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## jaymar (5 May 2007)

I've read the posts on this thread but I'm still not sure what the advantages of Ubuntu over Windows are. I have an elderly laptop with XP which I only use for simple games, websurfing and photo manipulating. Would I gain anything with Ubuntu ?(the laptop will only take 128 mg of memory so runs slow with windows) Would I be better loading both ?


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## mr (5 May 2007)

There are Linux distros that would fly along nicely with that speciication probably not Ubuntu though. Having said that there is a lightweight version for lesser spec machines called Xubuntu. Confused yet ? However if you're happy with what youve got then why change? If on the oither hand you want a more up to date system at a better cost and, it would appear, more useable than Vista seems to be out of the box then perhaps it's something to consider. 
Cheers Mike


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## misterfish (5 May 2007)

I've got a second hard drive in my PC with a Feisty Fawn installation of Ubuntu.

As a long time Windows user (since version 2) I'm quite impressed with what Linux seems to offer. I'm not a games player so fancy high end graphics and the latest games aren't of concern to me, but the wide array of free software is pretty impressive.

The only major downside I have found is network/internet connection. Using a cabled connection it works fine, but wireless is another ballgame and the most problematic. As most wireless adaptor manufacturers don't produce Linux drivers you have to use a program called NDISWrapper that allows Linux to use Windows drivers. At least that is the theory - but despite hours of searching the web and support forums I am unable to get it to work (and that is despite 20 years employed as a small systems IT specialist involved with software and hardware installation, support and development). My son has been experimenting with SUSE Linux and is also unable to get his wireless adaptor to work.

It feel that I am going to have to spend many more hours fighting the system before I stand any chance of it working. Others have reported success with the same adaptor as I use and I have tried all the tweaks they reported making to their installations but with no success.

I quite expect the only way I will succeed wil be to replace the wireless adaptor with one for which the manufacturer produces Linux drivers.

However, if you have a standard wired connection then there should be no problem.

MisterFish


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## MrJay (8 May 2007)

It doesn't make much difference if you get your connection via wires or wireless. What does make a difference is if you attach your computer to a network via a network card or via USB. Grownup modems do all the signal processing on board and plug straight into the network port. Linux likes networks.

Linux thinks trying to network via a USB port is a bit daffy. Cheap ADSL modems (the USB variety) don't do any signal processing (in fact one wonders what they do do) and rely on the operating system to do all that as a background task via proprietary drivers. Compatible drivers can probably be found and configured, but if you're a fresh convert from Windows and don't know your way around it's a frustrating way to have to start.

Try the Live CD first. If the Internet works you're good to go, otherwise brace yourself. I bought a proper modem/router/hardware firewall box on ebay for about £20 - win.

Don't expect Linux to run all your commercial windows software. Some stuff works, lots of stuff sort of works a bit, lots more doesn't. Linux does however have lots of it's own software, some of it is very good. If you just absolutely must use MS Publisher it's your own fault.

Ubuntu won't play DVDs out the box. For some wacky reason it's actually illegal to watch encoded DVDs on Linux which is why you absolutely mustn't open a terminal and type:

```
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/./install-css.sh
```

Because of Linux's open source traditions you should also expect to have to work to be able to play video files like you're used to (VLC is a much better media player than the default one by the way) and expect to have to download things like Java Run Time Environment that come ready to go on windows. Fortunately downloading and installing software typically inlvolves no more than typing the name of the software you're looking for into a box and pressing Ok.

Again because of licensing restrictions you won't have all the fonts you're used to pre-installed. You can go download the msttcorefonts.

Beryl is a travesty.
Linux has Beagle as a next gen search engine. Beagle is the opposite of travesty.


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## kafkaian (13 May 2007)

Have had Debian based systems for years, but then I'm a Unix/SQL/php developer and software engineer.

I tried Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" (replacing Debian from which Ubuntu is derived) on one of my machines and felt it was the first really true out-of-the-box Linux system available. It detected my cable modem at a breeze and I was able to use "Synaptic" to install my requirements in minutes.

I've long since lost touch with Windows as I prefer truly customizable and robust systems so can't do like-for-like comparisons with applications; vis-à-vis Office versus OpenOffice etc, but can say confidently that there's always something comparable available and plenty of forums to ask questions.

On said machine, I'm now on Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" and using it now to type this in. There are some issues with net browsers and video compatibilities/licensing problems as MrJay alludes to above (YouTube works a dream) whilst some BBC videos might need saving first and then playing in a standalone player, but apart from that, the feel is very "mainstream".

As for the spec argument, I would say that the basic 7.04 installation is still far less "bloated" than XP whilst *nix systems are, IMHO, traditionally better at making use of available resources than certain other global players!

Give it a go; you could always dual boot and leave your Windows partition intact!!! Soon you'll be setting up a LAMP server (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) and running a basic website from an IP to your own restricted access rather than through a third party host!!

If you're really interested, then there's potential for a lot of fun on the way.


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## MIGNAL (14 May 2007)

Standard answer from all the Linux geeks: get a proper modem. Most people don't want a 'proper' modem, they just want to surf the net at any reasonable speed. The most common USB modem packaged with British ISP's is the Thompson Speedtouch. Getting the speedtouch to work in Mandriva is a walk in the park, not so in Ubuntu but it must be possible because I managed to do it. I don't quite know how I did it but 'miracles do happen'. In fact I've become so confident in my abilities with Linux that I'm preparing to install Geentoo, see you in six months.


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## misterfish (14 May 2007)

I agree with Mignal - I have my system with its wireless adaptor that works fine with XP but cannot get it working with Feisty, Edgy or Dapper versions of Ubuntu. This is despite me being an IT specialist.

I am aware that this problem is caused by hardware manufacturers not providing Linux drivers, but what is needed is a simple method of getting this type of hardware to work. The procedures necessary to even try to get this type of hardware to work are not for the faint-hearted (feint-hearted?) and certainly not what 'ordinary' users want. Until installing hardware and drivers in Linux is as simple and straightforward as Windows then I am unlikely to ditch XP. This is a shame as I am impressed with the quality of much of the Linux programs.

MisterFish


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## MrJay (14 May 2007)

The latest version of Ubuntu (7.04? Feisty?) has a new widget called the Restricted Drivers Manager, which in theory (and practice with my graphics card/wireless network adapter) detects hardware, auto-magically installs license restricted drivers for stuff (like my wireless adapter) that just won't work without and makes installing and maintaining optional drivers (like my grpahics card) as simple as ticking a box and clicking OK.

I've no idea how it will cope with anyone elses various modems and such like, but if it works it's significantly easier than doing drivers with Windows.


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## wizer (14 May 2007)

I gave ubuntu a go when this thread was created. I have persevered with it but am probably going back to XP within the next few days. I have had to fiddle to get things working and can't get sketchup working with wine or vmware. XP works... No fuss. I can put up with the performance hit.


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## Gill (14 May 2007)

Could some of you guys have been drawn to Ubuntu by the promotional material...?


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## Nick W (14 May 2007)

As a moderator, Gill, I think you should slap yourself on the wrist for that. :roll:

b.t.w. I am posting this from Firefox on Ubuntu, on my shiny dual boot system.

Shame that none of the software that I need to use works under this OS though. :evil:


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## andycktm (14 May 2007)

Come back Vista all is forgiven :lol: :lol:

10 years ago i tried another os can't remember what it was but it would boot from windows, seemed great
but unfortunatly i couldn't get anything to work with it :?


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## RogerM (14 May 2007)

Gill":cv94mj6t said:


> Could some of you guys have been drawn to Ubuntu by the promotional material...?




Gill - now if someone could work this type of image into a kalidoscope they may be on to a winner! :wink:


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## Nick W (9 Sep 2007)

Does anyone know how to change the default boot order on a laptop? At the moment Windoze is last on the list, so if I forget to stand by the machine when switching it on I end up in Ubuntu, which is not what I want most of the time.

TIA


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## DomValente (9 Sep 2007)

Nick, I have a gentleman sitting next to me who is a software specialist for a *very* well known company. 
He's feeling lazy but suggests "Google is your friend", just type in 'boot order


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## Nick W (9 Sep 2007)

Sorry, it looks like I didn't ask the right question. Boot Order is about which order disk drives are searched for an operating system. What I want do is change the order in which operating systems are listed having found them on my C: drive.


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## lemonjeff (9 Sep 2007)

Nick,

If your using XP look in system properties/advanced/startup & recovery.
There you can select the default OS.

Jeff.


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## Nick W (9 Sep 2007)

Jeff,

Thanks, but as that doesn't list Ubuntu as a option, I don't think it can be the right thing.


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## Nick W (9 Sep 2007)

Thanks to Mike (mr) for pointing me in the right direction


> If Ubuntu is your default installation by which I mean if its the OS that boots if the machine is left to its own devices then you can edit the order of the load menu
> If you open a terminal window change directory to /boot/grub and then type in the terminal window sudo gedit menu.lst (you could cut and paste that into the terminal window. You will get a text file open up.
> Scroll down to about line 125 where the boot options start. You will see different releases of ubuntu and at the bottom Windows. Cut and paste the windows bit and make it the first in the list. First in the list is the default boot.
> 
> Bear in mind that this only works if your Ubuntu installation is the default booting operating system.


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## tnimble (9 Sep 2007)

The order of the operating systems that are boot is determined by the grub boot loader program which is part of the Ubuntu distribution. The configuration can be found in the file _/boot/grub/menu.lst_. Near the end of this file each operating system has a block starting with a line _title=name_in_boot_menu_ and ends with an empty line. Move these blocks in the order you want and rerun the grub program to active the new boot menu by typing _grub_ as root user in a terminal window.


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## Dave S (9 Sep 2007)

alternatively, just add a line default = n

where n is the listing you want to boot by default. Note that they start numbering at 0, so if you want to have the third listing boot by default you would add a line "default = 2" without the quotes. I have it just above the timeout line.

My grub.conf is:


```
# Which listing to boot as default. 0 is the first, 1 the second etc.
default 0
# How many seconds to wait before the default listing is booted.
timeout 30
# Nice, fat splash-image to spice things up :)
# Comment out if you don't have a graphics card installed
#splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.22-r5
# Partition where the kernel image (or operating system) is located
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/sdb2

title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.22-r5 (rescue)
# Partition where the kernel image (or operating system) is located
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/kernel-2.6.22-gentoo-r5 root=/dev/sdb2 init=/bin/bb

# The next four lines are only if you dualboot with a Windows system.
# In this case, Windows is hosted on /dev/sda1
title=Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
```

Dave


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