Running Windows & Ubuntu

Probably the most asked question from Windows users is simply "Can I run Ubuntu without uninstalling Windows?" or "Can I try it without screwing up Windows?".

The answer is Yes. You can. And it's really not that difficult.

You have a number of options starting from the simple to the more complex:

Run it from USB (my preference) or from CD - Ubuntu provides what are called "Live CD's". Booting from the disk simply loads Ubuntu into your computers memory. Once you have it running you can do almost everything you could do from a real install. The downside is that you cannot save anything as it will be deleted once you reboot.  Ubuntu officially list a couple of good reasons you may want to go this route:

• checks hardware works as expected
• check the look & feel of the distro

One more advantage is that once you have tested it you can install Ubuntu from the same CD/USB.

Using the Ubuntu Installer (WUBI) from within Windows (not tried this myself) - With this metod, you simply download the Ubuntu installer and run it from within Windows.


Install & Run Ubuntu from a virtual machine (esp., using virtualbox) within Windows. If you have never used virutal machines before, I do not recommend this. This is definitely most tricky of the 3 ways listed here.



Thanks to Psychocat for the tutorial on installing a virtual machine from within windows.