Comments on: Ubuntu Linux

By: Jordon

Jordon — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 01:24:16 +0000

Well, thanks for your advice and concern. Tomorrow I'm probably going to post an update detailing the current situation. Nothing's really happened yet, though.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:01:27 +0000

Hmmm... this has been dead for a while. Thought I check back...

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 04:21:14 +0000

Ahh.. One more thing. Before your final defrag before partitioning, turn off Windows' swap file. This can be in a very random place, often the very end of the drive.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:41:47 +0000

I just called a friend of mine who is a computer repair/builder/programmer for a living, and he says that you can format a partition as fat and one as ntfs on the same drive. If you have the funds for another drive, that would be the easiest. If (when) you switch to full time Linux, you won't have to worry about getting rid of the Windows partition. But, if not, partitioning it should work. Make sure you defrag before you partition, though. And leave some room on the Windows partition for more apps and files.

Some distros will automatically resize the Windows partition, but Ubuntu I think doesn't.

Ther is no such thing as a stupid question, my friend. If you want to email instead of using this comment thread, I'd be happy to email. My address is jdharms at gmail.com

Good luck!

By: Jordon

Jordon — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:42:11 +0000

I checked; it uses NTFS. Should I partition at all? Could I just put in another hard drive and have it run off that? Would that work? Do I ask too many stupid questions?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 21:50:36 +0000

In firefox, the bookmarks are kept in a bookmarks.html file in the profile directory. This is usually in application data on Windows. You can, as Luke says, also export to a seperate file. And, what do you mean by "files"? If you mean data files, like .mp3's .doc's and the like, then yeah. You can just mount your Windows partition. And it's not as hard as it sounds, Linux has been automounting for years. It might automount your Windows partition the first time you boot into Ubuntu. I don't know since I don't have a Windows partition on that machine.

As for a partitioner, if you don't have one that will run off of a floppy, I would recommend http://www.ranish.com/part/ It worked for me when I weaned myself off of Windows. It should also have a link to a .pdf file on instructions for setting up a dual-boot machine.

Also, if your XP box is using the NTFS file system, partitioning will be a real pain. I cannot explain how much of a pain it will be. I didn't even attempt it. I've heard it's possible. The reason is Linux must be run off of a FAT hard drive.

Also, I do think that if you transfered the thunderbird profile folder to the appropriate folder on the Linux partition it would work. But make sure you just transfer the contents of the folder, and not the folder itself.

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 01:56:23 +0000

Both Firefox and Thunderbird have options for exporting bookmarks and contacts (respectively). However, you are seeking to copy your messages as well. This will be no problem if you have IMAP, but I suspect you use POP. It might be worth trying to copy your settings folder from wherever it is in Windows to ~/.thunderbird. This is not guaranteed to work, and you may want to look at the Mozilla Wiki for more information. Good luck, cheers, etc.