Wubi Fails

[silvermountain]

Tried to give Ubuntu a second chance after not used it for years so I went to http://wubi-installer.org/ and installed Wubi.

It ended up sitting on 'installing bootloader.ini-orsomethinglikehat" for an hour. Cancelled it. Rebooted and when trying to re-install it detects an installed version. When trying to un-install it now gets stuck on 'Removing bootloader".

I'm running Win XP on this particular machine.

Unfortunately this does remind me about the quality of Ubuntu the last time I gave up on it.

Oh well, now I got 800 meg I can't get rid of. Reading up on their bugforum there seems to be a fair bit of issues with the dual/multi boot loader.

Anyone got any clever ideas before I resign completely to not trying out this and to continue to see Ubuntu as a hokey bit of failprogram? :)

[danramos]

Usually I'm able to find SOMETHING to do with these problems but I couldn't find anything about this. When you boot the computer, do you get the grub menu at all? (Maybe try holding down shift during the POST and before the OS loads to see if GRUB is set to skip the menu like it is in most of the newest Linux distributions by default).

[silvermountain]

Usually I'm able to find SOMETHING to do with these problems but I couldn't find anything about this. When you boot the computer, do you get the grub menu at all? (Maybe try holding down shift during the POST and before the OS loads to see if GRUB is set to skip the menu like it is in most of the newest Linux distributions by default).


Actually I don't get the dual boot option at all and looking at the boot file itself I can't see that it is even touched:

Looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn /sos

So not sure why both the install - and now the uninstall hangs at the bootloader. Darn, wanted to try this out.

[atz6975]

You need time :
1) Had you waited more maybe Wubi would have been better
2) Had you waited more it might had finished installing/removing (take your time and choose) the bootloader
3) Had you waited more Ubuntu's quality would have finally met your standards (or your pc's HD's)
4) Now take your time and read some more google (or maemo) tips about multi booting XP+Ubuntu

With time I've come to prefer Vista's bootloader+EasyBCD. Of course you only use vista's BL not the OS.

If you have time, have fun.

[silvermountain]

You need time :
1) Had you waited more maybe Wubi would have been better
2) Had you waited more it might had finished installing/removing (take your time and choose) the bootloader
3) Had you waited more Ubuntu's quality would have finally met your standards (or your pc's HD's)
4) Now take your time and read some more google (or maemo) tips about multi booting XP+Ubuntu

With time I've come to prefer Vista's bootloader+EasyBCD. Of course you only use vista's BL not the OS.

If you have time, have fun.

It takes over an hour for the install/remove to do the bootloader? Wow, ok, that I didn't know.

[fatalsaint]

It takes over an hour for the install/remove to do the bootloader? Wow, ok, that I didn't know.

I wouldn't think so.. but then I've never used Wubi.

I always repartitioned the drives so that each OS had it's own dedicated partition.

If you try and re-install it doesn't ask you to just over-write the current installation? (again, never used Wubi)

[silvermountain]

If you try and re-install it doesn't ask you to just over-write the current installation? (again, never used Wubi)

Nah, it detects it was 'installed' (even though it failed) and wants to start off with removing the old install - and the "remove bootloader entry" window comes up and sits there..and sits there...

Tried removing from the Control Panel as well with the same result.

[atz6975]

...ok...more seriously...
Darn, wanted to try this out.
Really if you just want to try why not use virtual box + straight install of ubuntu. Any average XP machine can run both.
Dual booting is not dark science but might get tricky (obviously did in your case). So unless you're desperate for a "real machine" install why not try the virtual route first. And if ever you're convinced, you can always setup a real machine.
One trick : In Ubuntu's partitionning you must choose to put Grub on the right spot (HD vs Ux partition) depending on wether you want to boot with XP BL or Grub's. This is done by pressing the advanced button JUST BEFORE launching the install.

I hope you didn't take my other post too bad...(if applicable, sorry)

[fatalsaint]

On trick : In Ubuntu's partitionning you must choose to put Grub on the right spot (HD vs Ux partition) depending on wether you want to boot with XP BL or Grub's.
I hope you didn't take my other post too bad...

I don't think Wubi actually gives you this option... I could be wrong though.. it was my first thought too but then I looked at Wubi's page again and it basically just says to put in a password and "install".. with no further interaction.

[atz6975]

Ach ya....Wubi...maybe not an easy setup after all.
Final word then : Virtual Machine

[amh]

Just out of interest, did you try running it as a live CD. I've never used wubi, but I've dual booted many desktops and laptops with ubuntu and that's normally my first step to check hardware compatibility.

Of course your problem may just be that the wubi installer isn't very good. Like I say, don't have much experience with that.

[silvermountain]

Just out of interest, did you try running it as a live CD. I've never used wubi, but I've dual booted many desktops and laptops with ubuntu and that's normally my first step to check hardware compatibility.

Of course your problem may just be that the wubi installer isn't very good. Like I say, don't have much experience with that.


Nope just ran the Wubi installer that is now messed up and won't remove the 800Meg it already placed. Guess I'll clean it out manually and stay away from that pos. :)

[wmarone]

I'll second others comments here and try putting Ubuntu in a Virtual Machine. If you load up VirtualBox and grab Ubuntu 9.10 (haven't tried 10.04 yet,) it should install cleanly. If you install the "build-essential" package then install the VirtualBox extras, it's about 20 minutes or less to a fully 3D accelerated Ubuntu desktop.

[fatalsaint]

Nope just ran the Wubi installer that is now messed up and won't remove the 800Meg it already placed. Guess I'll clean it out manually and stay away from that pos. :)

Don't blame Ubuntu for this though.. Wubi != Ubuntu. It's a third party thing.

If you really want to try Ubuntu; you can boot and run the installer; and during the install process it will allow you to resize your partitions (yes, NTFS too) and make some small space for a real Ubuntu installation.

Now; if that fails - then you can diss Ubuntu :D. (Of course; if that fails you could also lose your data.. but I won't mention that :o (hasn't happened to me yet tho!))

[silvermountain]

Manually clearing out the install (had to do a system restore as well to get it back to clean - still not sure what I missed doing it manually but oh well) - got rid of the 'freeze' on the bootloader when trying to re-install.

So I, since I don't learn from my mistakes, decided to try to install Wubi again (this time on a fresh boot with everything shut down) - and...this time it installed perfectly fine.

Playing with it as we speak...

[fatalsaint]

Manually clearing out the install (had to do a system restore as well to get it back to clean - still not sure what I missed doing it manually but oh well) - got rid of the 'freeze' on the bootloader when trying to re-install.

So I, since I don't learn from my mistakes, decided to try to install Wubi again (this time on a fresh boot with everything shut down) - and...this time it installed perfectly fine.

Playing with it as we speak...

Glad it worked out for you :D

Sucks you had to do a sys restore...

[silvermountain]

System restore was no biggie. Picked a resore point from yesterday and bam I was back in business.

Ubuntu finished the install after the mandatory reboot and wow, it looks a LOT slicker than what I remember. I'll be playing with this tonight :) Gotta get rid off FF and get Chrome for Linux installed to start with (personal preference) :)

The one thing I'm 'struggling' a bit with right now is that I remember Ubuntu booting FAST but I am getting a 3-4 mins bootup time (equivalent to my XP startup). Maybe there are ways for me to tweak this though.

Want....Ubuntu on N810 :)

[fatalsaint]

Ubuntu IS on the N810.... b-man I think was doing it. Should be steps in this forum.

As far as bootup - that could be related to the fact that the Ubuntu is installed to files on the NTFS drive.. I'm not sure if a Wubi install suffers to a normal install.

3-4 minutes seems long though; what kind of hardware?

[silvermountain]

Lenovo T61. 3ish years old not exactly a race horse these days. 80gb hd, 2gb ram. It's my 'play'-laptop :)

[elimoon8]

The one thing I'm 'struggling' a bit with right now is that I remember Ubuntu booting FAST but I am getting a 3-4 mins bootup time (equivalent to my XP startup).

I recall 2 things:
1. I read somewhere (can't really remember where) that installing Linux through Wubi causes the Linux install to boot up slower. I believe it, too. Doing an install on a clean partition would probably decrease the startup time.
2. Assuming you installed 10.04, it's "supposed" to boot up faster than previous versions.

I've installed wubi several times, and it has never failed to work (both on Windows XP and Windows 7). Things to keep in mind for anyone that wants to try it:
1. Download the ISO first, and place it in the same folder as the wubi installer. This gives you more options on how you want to download it (torrents seem to be the fastest way to download newly released distributions). Try placing both on the desktop if they don't work while in a subfolder (I just always do it from the desktop).
2. When using wubi, make sure to choose the same type of install that you downloaded the ISO for. If you downloaded the 9.10 desktop ISO or the 9.10 "netbook remix" ISO, choose the right one. I think Wubi does some sort of file check, so if you want to install a new version that's not included in the installer, you'll just have to wait until they add it. (The last time I tried to use the "official" installer for Wubi, they hadn't included 10.04, and simply renaming the 10.04 ISO to match the 9.10 ISO naming scheme didn't work).
3. If the "official" Wubi installer doesn't support 10.04 (which it didn't soon after release), try this one (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1439526).

[silvermountain]

Played with Ubuntu for two days now and my conclusion is that I really don't like it. Going back to Win7 that I must admit I love.

In the end I don't really think it matters if an OS is open/closed/whatever - if you don't like using it the underlying philosophies doesn't matter one bit.

Good thing we are all different :)

[danramos]

System restore was no biggie. Picked a resore point from yesterday and bam I was back in business.

Ubuntu finished the install after the mandatory reboot and wow, it looks a LOT slicker than what I remember. I'll be playing with this tonight :) Gotta get rid off FF and get Chrome for Linux installed to start with (personal preference) :)

The one thing I'm 'struggling' a bit with right now is that I remember Ubuntu booting FAST but I am getting a 3-4 mins bootup time (equivalent to my XP startup). Maybe there are ways for me to tweak this though.

Want....Ubuntu on N810 :)

Yeah..that's weird. From the moment I see the BIOS finishes POST, my mom's laptop with Xubuntu is about 10 seconds. My Mini9 with Kubuntu is up in about 4 seconds.

Still.. glad you got everything worked out and running.


Played with Ubuntu for two days now and my conclusion is that I really don't like it. Going back to Win7 that I must admit I love.

In the end I don't really think it matters if an OS is open/closed/whatever - if you don't like using it the underlying philosophies doesn't matter one bit.

Good thing we are all different :)

I would have marked this with THANKS. Karma points for being completely fair and correct. :) I'd rather see system diversity than monopolies. That includes not necessarily pushing Linux everywhere, especially where it's still not the right tool (as rare as that is, in my opinion). heheh