A quick and dirty guide to installing Windows7 on an old Linux laptop

Before we get started, a quick overview of what we are about to do in the next few minutes (or hours depending on your luck).

Windows7 is the exciting new OS from Microsoft, which has garnered rave reviews from everywhere. It is touted as the best windows ever, and even the Linux community is keeping a close watch on its progress. The most interesting feature for me would definitely be the more optimized and fast experience, and the jump lists; Details of which I will cover in later sections.

My current rig:
Compaq nx7010 business laptop (2003)
Pentium Centrino 1.6GHz
1.5 Gigs of RAM
OSs installed: Linux Mint and Windows XP
Graphics adapter: ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
Critical Drivers: Intel wireless ipw2100 and..Connexant AC97

Key Objective:
To install windows7 keeping my Linux and XP intact. And atleast have wifi and sound working on the new OS. Aero will not function with the depricated graphics adapter so will give it a pass.

A Word of Warning:

1. Backup all your important stuff. Be careful, It's a beta we are dealing with here.2. Keep all your old windows drivers in a place, as we may need it later.
3. This is a long article, so be patient and don't jump steps.
4. And please, don't panic :)

Preparations:
As with any OS installation, there is some prep work needed
1. Prepare your partitions. We will start off with resizing our existing partition.I booted with my Linux Mint live cd and used gParted to resize my Linux partition and create a NTFS partition for windows7.

2. Download Widows7 beta iso and burn it onto a dvd.
3. Write down the activation key issued from the website on paper.
Great! We are ready.

Installation:



1. Pop in your Windows7 DVD and restart your pc.
2. Go slow. Click on start installation.
3. Chose Custom installation and select the newly created partition as the location where you wish to install Windows7.
4. Grab your ipod and go for a walk.
5. Come back after 45mins, select basic settings like your language and timezone. Enter your beta key and your new OS is ready



Realization:
Before you start jumping in joy, there is something we overlooked. You will observe that the windows bootloader seems to have replaced GRUB. It can smartly detect our XP and add into the boot list. But where is our Linux? Let's come back to it a bit later. There are still some challenges.

Your old drivers won't work. ATI stopped supporting my old gfx card years back. Same goes for intel. No more pro wireless 2100 drivers for Vista or above. My sound card Connexant AC97 also has no compatible soundcard drivers after XP. Here are a couple of things, you could do.
1. Install your old driver packages using compatibility mode.

2. Check Windows Updates if the drivers are available.
3.Google for newer drivers or solutions from folks with similar issues.
4.Manually install your old drivers from the "Device Manager" console.
Right Click on an unknown device, select "Update Driver Software" and choose "Browse my Computer.." to browse to the location of the extracted driver.

5. If all this doesn't help, get a new rig mate, or live without the unrecognized hardware.

Getting our GRUB back:
We have all the time in the world to play with our spanking new Win7 but let us fix our grub first and come back later. For this, load your favorite live bootable cd and open the terminal. Type the following commands to fix grub.


$ sudo grub

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,0)

grub> root (hd0,0)

grub> setup (hd0,0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,0) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu
.lst "... succeeded
Done.

grub> quit



Now restart your pc and wait for grub to load. You would see your old grub boot screen with a line for WinXP. Select it and voila, you are taken to the familiar Windows7 boot manager. This was a big surprise to me as well :). If this doesn't work, edit grub and add an entry pointing to Windows7.

Boot into your installed linux instance and edit grub.lst
$ sudo gedit boot/grub/menu.lst


Add the following lines at the end

# on /dev/sda4
title windows 7 beta (Loader)
root (hd0,3)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1


My windows 7 resides on /dev/sda4 hence it's (hd0, 3). Confirm this via fdisk or gparted.


Closing Remarks:
Yeah, we are done now. We now have 3  different OSs  co-existing beautifully on our old laptop.  It wasn't a smooth ride but we made it :) . Enjoy, experiment, benchmark and review the three great OSs and drop me comments on your experience. Thanks.




Connexant AC97 help

“How to” Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 (Ubuntu installed first)

Living with Linux, Windows7 and XP: The complete experience

It was high time, I wrote something interesting on this blog. The upcoming articles will be more focussed on my experiences with Windows7. Here are some of them in the pipeline:



1. A quick Windows7 installation guide (when a Linux distro is already installed)
2. A multi-boot guide for Windows7 and Linux to co-exist together
3. A painful guide to installing some old drivers on your Windows7 box
4. The comparative experience: Linux (KDE/Gnome) vs Windows 7

Great! Let me get started in writing these, and check back soon later.

Microsoft announces Windows 7 SKUs (updated)

Just when you thought nothing could go wrong with Windows 7, Microsoft shoots at it's own feet by preparing to launch 6 different versions of their next major release. It's officially confirmed that it's one more than the following screenshot leaked out last week :)

• Windows 7 Starter (limited to three apps concurrently)
  
• Windows 7 Home Basic (for emerging markets)
• Windows 7 Home Premium (adds Aero, Touch, Media Center)
  
• Windows 7 Professional (Remote Desktop host, Mobility Center, Presentation mode)
  
• Windows 7 Enterprise (volume license only, boot from virtual drive, BitLocker)
  
• Windows 7 Ultimate (limited availability, includes everything)

As an end-user, I am bemused at the fact that how does M$ expect us to pick the right one. It's going to be more complex for Business users and enterprises. I just wish they rethink on the SKUs before it's too late.

My take

• Starter (Free non-commercial edition for students and developing nations)
  
• Home (Aero, media center etc.)
  
• Business ( Remote Desktop host, VM etc.)
  

Now, how hard can this be?

Update: ZDNet's Ed Bott reports that Windows 7 has trimmed down to only 3 different versions for everyone in developed countries: Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate/Enterprise. Windows 7 Home Basic and Starter editions are actually available in emerging markets, but they "will not legally be available for sale in the U.S., Western Europe, Japan, and other developed countries."

[image courtesy of Engadget]

Is Tuxmachines down ... not really

Tuxmachines.org is a great place for FOSS and Linux news. Sadly it seems their ISP messed up their DNS enteries. Till they fix it, here is an alternate way to access it. http://67.33.45.3/
Enjoy!

Tip of the week: Accessing Twitter and Gmail behind office firewall

This is something everyone wants to do right. In most of the offices personal email, social networking sites, chat clients and alternative browsers, are all banned. Here is a nice little trick to access gmail and post tweets, right from your office firewall.

1. Just go to Pageflakes, a nice web application which I covered a year back.

2. Create a new account and browse for the email, twitter and facebook flakes from the flakes gallery.
Note: "Pop Download" must be enabled in your GMail settings, so configure this from your home before you try this at your workplace

3. Now go to your pageflakes home page and configure your new flakes and be surprised!

Ubuntu 8.10: Resolving Skype sound issues

It would be safe to say, Skype is the best bet for Voip calls on linux. I have almost given up on a gtalk linux client or a decent jingle client.
On a recent upgrade to Ubuntu Interpid (8.10), Skype 2.0 stopped working. Let us fix this issue and get back to our calls.



$ killall pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install pulseaudio ubuntu-desktop

Great! Run skype and test if everything works.



HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSuse .. does it really matter?

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because life after university is pretty hectic, especially in this current environment where every company is cutting headcount and looking at expense reduction in all possible ways. Everyone is multi-tasking and wearing different hats.

Anyways, a more important and interesting reason being, it's the perfect time of the year to experiment and look around. It's a season of new releases. Be it Ubuntu with 8.10, or Fedora's 10th release, Mandriva's shiny 2009 edition or the upcoming betas of OpenSuse and Vector Linux.

As an end-user, it's not hard to see the amount of effort and polishing that has went into these releases. And trust me, it's well worth revisiting them as this year it changes a lot of preconceived notions.


1. Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

At first glance, it looks exactly like Hardy (8.04), just a bit darker and browner. It has a more refined installation compared to it's predecessors but nothing groundbreaking, which is sometimes great. You don't change a winning formula. It continues to offer the most stable Linux experience to beginners and experts alike. Great community support, features that just work out of the box and some new improvements. Ubuntu looks as good as always. My only quirk is the default theme. C'mon guys, It's high time to give it a face lift. Hopefully the next release Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) addresses that and gives it a well deserved makeover.

2. Fedora 10
I started off with Red Hat years back. Resolving the package dependencies was always a big challenge but nevertheless exciting. I have since then moved onto Ubuntu and to be honest Synaptic (apt pakage manager) is probably the best pakage manager, closely matched by SUSE's Yast.

Fedora 10 blows you away from the start. It has a great installer as always, looks refreshing, has added tonnes of improvements in the networking front and with the inclusion of PackageKit (introduced in fedora9), looks like the perfect fedora desktop ever.

3. Mandriva 2009

Just one word "Gorgeous". I installed the KDE 4.1.2 version of mandriva and it is simply beautiful. The mandriva control center, the package manager and the network manager are simply great to use. Having said that, I did encounter a couple of issues. Mostly in its implementation of pulse audio and some minor KDE4 bugs. Another worrying concern is the supposedly declining community.
Overall it's a great distro for everyone. Hope it garners more ardent followers which it really deserves.

4. Vector Linux 6

It is still in beta2 as I write. I had a wonderful time with VL5.9 and found it to be the most optimized and resource effecient distro amongst all that we have mentioned so far in this post. It has a refreshingly new gui installer and some nice updates. I hope to revisit it again once the release candidate is out, later next year.

5. OpenSUSE11.1

Still in beta, the new SUSE looks really promising. It probably has the most well integrated KDE4 experience and it's inclusion of mono 2.0 is a big thumbs up. Other distros are planning to follow suit in upcoming releases.
One complaint I have always had with OpenSUSE is that it hogs a lot of memory. So if you own a old piece of hardware, the kind I do, better give it a miss.


Now the important question. So many really good choices. Which one to chose? One thing I learnt from trying so many distros in such a short period of time is that it's not hard to switch. We are so familiar with KDE4 or Gnome that most of us generally don't care about what's really under the hood. We have the same familiar Gimp, VLC, OpenOffice, Firefox etc across all the Linux flavors.
More often it's just a personal choice, a way to express our ideas and thoughts, and most importantly the desire to support and encourage the community and the open-source movement. So the next time when you try a new distro, whatever it be, feel proud of being a part of it. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to leave comments on your favorite distro and any strong likes or dislikes. Would love to hear from you all.

Google launches video chat, still no love shown for Linux

This morning when I read the news that google has finally launched audio and video chat, right from Gmail, I was really excited. Imagine a browser plugin that would finally bring gtalk audio to us, the Linux users.



Well, unfortunately it only works on Windows and Mac OS. They do have plans to accomodate other platforms soon. Well yeah, we buy that google! We have been frickin waiting for a native gtalk application for 4 years now. And yes, we are still waiting for Chrome. The greatest advocator of open source, but still no love shown for Linux. This is really sad. Hope things change soon.