installing linux on extra partition

corec

hey i was wanting to install Ubuntu on a 90 gig partition I made in windows that will allow me to Dual-boot both. I've used the Wubi installer to do it before but this time i was wanting to do it myself since wubi only allowed a max of i think 40 some gb's. So since i have 90 gigs of unallocated space i was wandering if i need to do something with the filing system or while installing Ubuntu it will recognize the partition and be able to use what filing system it wanted to?

Any help is appreciated.

mfillpot

Are you using a physical installation into a physical partition or are you running windows in the wubi instance?

corec

its physical i was going to actually install it without the wubi because it limited the space i used disc management in windows to make it and it says unallocated disc space i was wandering how you dual boot it with windows if this isnt what you were wanting to know just tell me thanks for helping

mfillpot

If you install ubuntu on a physical partition it automatically installs and configures it's own bootloader that configures entries for windows and ubuntu.

corec

whoa that simple? i thought i was going to have to go through a bunch of different settings in windows but any ways thanks for all the help

mfillpot

Setting up the dual boot between ubuntu (and most Linux distros) and windows when windows is installed first is simple, because the distros do attempt to automatically detect and configure the bootloader.

However if you had a Linux distro installed first then you are in for a headache because windows will overwrite all bootloaders, replace them with the windows bootloader that only sees windws, this will make you have to use a recovery disk to boot into your Linux distro to manually fix and reinstall the bootloader on the MBR.