safely using a computer which seems to have poor security or lacks privacy. This is particularly good if you have a Usb stick or something to save your data and settings on (see ‘persistent image’)

Other Ways to Try Ubuntu

LiveCDs are designed for people that want to use Ubuntu on a computer for a few hours. If you want to carry a LiveCD around with you, a persistent image lets you customise your live session. If you want to use Ubuntu on a computer for a few weeks or months, Wubi lets you install Ubuntu inside Windows. If you want to use Linux on a computer permanently, dual-booting lets you install Window and Ubuntu (or which-ever distro) side-by-side on the same computer.

Because Wubi needs Windows and Ubuntu to co-operate, you have to deal with all the problems of both systems. For example, it’s not easy to completely uninstall Wubi. An experienced linux user or someone with considerable technical knowledge about Windows might find it better to try Wubi in some certain circumstances where dual-booting is infeasible or inadvisable. See the Wubi guide for more information about Wubi, particularly how to uninstall it cleanly.

Dual-booting can be daunting at first, but tends to work better once you’ve got it set up. This allows Window & Ubuntu to work without relying on the other for anything, except the boot-loader. As you get more comfortable with Ubuntu, you can just forget about your Windows partition. Reinstalling Windows is quite tricky, so it’s best to leave your Windows partition in place unless you’re absolutely sure you’ll never use Windows again.

How-To LiveCD Ubuntu

Preparing your LiveCD

You need to create, borrow, buy or request an Ubuntu CD or Usb-stick. Once you have an Ubuntu Cd or Usb it should work as an installer and as a !LiveCD or LiveUsb. There are some downloads, such as the Alternate Cd that cannot be used as !LiveCd/Usb.

To create a LiveCd

Download Ubuntu. For a live CD, avoid the «alternate CD» & the Server Edition because it has no desktop. For installing, using the alternate CD is a good idea, if installing using the standard CD does not work.

Make your own CD. Cheap «write once» CDs in packs of 10 or more are usually best. You could burn a new CD once every 6 months to get the latest version but all version are supported for 18 months and long time support releases for 3 years. You could also use the remaining CDs for trying out other distros Having a quick demo of other distros can help you understand Linux in general a LOT better a LOT faster, which helps you understand Ubuntu better.

To create a LiveUsb

The Usb stick needs to be 1Gb or more and there are 2 different pages giving advice. I prefer the first; Installation/FromUSBStick, Installation/FromImgFiles

To buy an Ubuntu Cd

The official Cannonical store, OnDisc, OSDisc or your local Ubuntu team might be able to help you find somewhere in your country from which to buy Ubuntu CDs. Also see GettingUbuntu for more information.

Using your LiveCD

Put the Ubuntu CD into the CD/DVD-drive and reboot the computer. You should see a menu with «Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer» at the top. If you don’t get this menu, read the booting From the CD guide for more information.

Figure 1: The first thing you will see when you boot from your Ubuntu CD
Press the up or down arrow on keyboard to get your language and then press enter

Figure 2: F6 will give you Boot Options & allows you to edit the boot-string

Choose «Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer». You should get a desktop which we call a «LiveCD session». If you don’t see a desktop, or need safe graphics mode, read the boot options for more information.

Figure 3: The LiveCD lets you manage partitions with GPartEd.
Also see the installer icon top-left

The Firefox icon on the top panel should let you surf the internet. Other normal programs are available in the menus.

After you have finished, shut the computer down and remove the CD. At this point anything you saved to the desktop or Documents folders and such will vanish — only things you saved into folders on the hard-drive will remain. This means that there won’t be any trace of your personal data (e-mails, passwords etc.) left on the machine, which can be quite useful if you don’t trust the Windows installation on the computer.

If you have troubles getting the working desktop but if it is still not behaving then try asking for help in Launchpad or use Signpost Help, or both.

Installing Programs or Other Packages

You can install programs to a LiveCD session in the normal way, although these will be forgotten as soon as you switch the machine off. For example, you might install antivirus or data-recovery tools to fix the system installed on the computer’s hard drive. Because space is limited on a LiveCD, you should limit the number of packages you install or consider using a persistent image.

Making a Customised LiveCD

If you want to make custom Ubuntu-based Live CD, you should read the LiveCD Customisation HowTo. Without even starting from an existing Ubuntu CD you can make a customised live system, see LiveCD Customisation From Scratch.

Troubles with a LiveCD

Logging in

Sometimes a LiveCD might ask you for a user-name or password. Just leave these blank and press enter (or allow it to time-out).

Figure 4: Just press enter to get past this, or let it time-out

Figure 5: 10.04 login screen

Security and Updating

While linux systems are more secure than Windows, LiveCD sessions are not meant for long-term use nor for sessions lasting several days. Because LiveCDs can’t easily be updated, they may well be vulnerable to security issues discovered in the months since their release. They also can’t protect you against scams such as phishing. If a criminal broke in to your live session, any changes he made to your session would be reset along with everything else when you reboot, although he could make permanent changes to the computer’s hard drive.

A persistent image can be updated as new security issues emerge, but also lets any damage done to your computer persist across sessions.

Setting a Password

You can set a password during a LiveCD session by opening a terminal, and typing in:

Text-Mode Installation

If your normal installation fails without giving an error message, or if you want to install on a very limited system, you can use the text-based installer instead.

How can I install Windows after I’ve installed Ubuntu?

I have Ubuntu on my laptop. Now I want install Windows 7 in a dual-boot. How can I do this?

I can’t lose my Ubuntu files, and I’m afraid that I might break GRUB.

Go here for UEFI only!

16 Answers 16

Here’s the general outline:

1. Make space for Windows
2. Install Windows
3. Mount the /boot directory or partition
4. Install the bootloader (GRUB)

Step Zero – Backup your important data before doing anything

Step One – Make space for Windows

Open up GParted, and make sure that you have at least 20 GB available for Windows 7, either as a partition you can remove, or as unpartitioned space. If it’s a partition, remove it from GRUB to make sure it doesn’t break your Ubuntu install — GParted will complain if anything bad is about to happen.

Make note of current /boot device. If that doesn’t show up there, make note of the / device. The device name is something like sda5 .

Step Two – Install Windows

Install Windows 7 into the space you just made

Step Three – Mount /boot

_{Note: Instead of mounting the boot directory or partition from the installation in the live media environment you can specify the path with the —boot-directory parameter for grub-install, more information on the manpage.}

Load up from your Ubuntu live CD, and then run these commands.

If you DO NOT have a separate /boot partition:

If you have a SEPARATE /boot partition:

Step Four – Install the bootloader

_{Note: These instructions were initially written for Windows 7 and BIOS booting computers. If you have UEFI and Windows 8 and above you probably need to replace grub-pc with grub-efi-amd64 in sudo apt-get install grub-pc .}

Then continue with those commands:

And restart. It should work fine and boot both systems.

Installing Windows after Ubuntu is not the recommended process for a dual boot Windows and Ubuntu system, but it is possible.

• First, you have to make sure that the 50GB free space is available, resizing your Ubuntu by using gParted if necessary.
• Also use gParted or Disk Utility to format the the free space as NTFS, this prevents Windows 7 from creating an additional boot partition in addition to the «C» drive.

Next, boot to the Windows DVD installer and install Windows on the NTFS partition. Upon reboot, Windows will automatically boot and you won’t see the grub menu allowing you to choose Ubuntu, because the Windows bootloader has replaced grub.

Now, what you need to do is run Ubuntu from LiveCD or LiveUSB and install boot-repair.

To install boot-repair, open up a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and type the following commands:

After installation, boot-repair will automatically launch, if is doesn’t, launch it via Dash.

Make sure to select recommended repair to repair grub. Reboot and that’s it.