Installing Ubuntu 9.10 using Wubi
 

Hello GFF and a happy new year to all!

I require your collective genius to help me resolve a small problem. Y'see I am trying to install Ubuntu 9.10 using Wubi on my Thinkpad r50e, running winxp. I have the iso mounted using virtual clonedrive, but when I tried opening wubi.exe, it will not load. The mouse does a hourglass thing, but the program does not start. I also tried this on mint4win.exe trying to install Linux Mint and also failed. I also tried disabling my anitivirus, running it as --32bit, but to no avail.

Any one have an idea why it will not work?

Wubi and mint4win have been sketchy over the years. For some, they work great. For others, not so much. Make sure you have the appropriate arch type on your ISO for your windows OS (ex: 64bit iso for 64bit windows, 32bit iso for 32bit windows). I don't think wubi/mint4win is arch dependent, but it can't hurt to try.

If you don't want to blow away your Windows install but want to try out ubuntu/linux mint, grab virtual box and install it in there.

I advice against installing into a virtual machine, if you want to seriously test the operating system. E.g. you won't get any good gfx performance out of the VM, to only name one issue.

I tried burning the ISO, but it still won't run/load. Anyway, I think I'll just wait when I can partition a part of my HD and install Linux in there.

Thanks shade a.k.a. the internet.

gparted (found on most any linux ISO these days) will partition your hard drive without erasing data, fyi, so you can just chop off some free space at the end and get ubuntu installed in that chunk.