BleepingComputer.com: New To The Whole Linux Thing.

Hi there I just made a Ubuntu live cd and I was wondering if it should take like 3-5 min to boot up and if I put this on another HDD will it boot faster??

I have a couple of small HDD's that came out of other PC's that I have gutted for parts and I was planning on doing a dual boot with 2 HDD's to keep them separate totally and learn more about Linux.

Is this possible and would it be my best wat to do it.

Also I have read that you can't use MP3's and DVD's on Linux and I was wondering if this is true or is there applications to aid in this.


Sorry for the newbee ???? but this is the first 5 min I have been on Linux.

Well i'm not sure about the dual boot, but it would make sense that it would be faster.

As for the mp3s: You can convert them to another file type which can be understood by linux.

and dvds.... I would like to know who told you that one? Maybe they meant mp4s or something.

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That is not true. The codecs to play mp3s are not installed by default to do licensing issues, but they are easy to install. I guess I have never had a problem with DVDs either.

Thanx for the info about the tunes.....

But how about the dual boot idea, How would I do it with 2 different HDD's?????

There are thousands of guides available on the Internet, including some that will be specific to whatever distribution that you choose. Basically, you just tell the installer which on which disk to install. Before you do it, read through some guides to get a feel for the process first though. So yes, you can install it on a separate drive if you wish.

Well I read a post somewhere on how to set up 2 drives on the IDE cable with a switch to close the jumpers to switch the drives boot order......

I think I am going to try this so it is easy to switch back and forth.

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Yeah, I'm not sure where you read that, but that is a bit hard core and completely unnecessary, unless you happen to be an electronics engineer with some time to kill. You can do it how you want, but it is much simpler to just install it on two separate drives, and let the boot manager handle which one you want to boot. You can still choose which one you want to boot, and there is no danger of ruining your system while trying to wire in a switch.

Installing to the hard drive will definitely speed things up over the LiveCD, by several orders of magnitude.

The easiest way to solve the MP3/DVD problem is to install Automatix.

As for installing on a separate drive, easy as pie. Assuming you have two hard drives installed, the second drive should be called SDB1 or HDB1 (that's SCSI Disk B, partiton 1 and Hard Drive B, partition 1 respectively.) Just point it at that drive (assuming you want to install it on the second drive) and let the installer do its thing.

Well after a few days playing with it all I finally got it to work like I wanted....


I got a DPDT switch and wired one master jumper to 2 of the posts that are live when the switch is one way and the other master jumper of the other drive to the other 2 posts that are live when the switch is switched.

I used some extra hard drive LED light wires for the jumpers and when one drive is selected the other drive see's no jumper and defaults to slave......


worked really easy and well, before you boot up the computer flip the switch to the OS you want to boot up and it boots with out having to worry about any boot manager..........

Nice electromechanical solution, but still curious about the concern over a boot manager. Most managers will detect both drives.

I just guess I like to add and mod things


I like that before I power up the computer, I just choose which OS I want to boot and press the button and walk away untill the computer is booted.