Ubuntu

Windows partition on linux?

Asked by Willrandship@gmail.com

I was wondering if my slave windows partition could be accessed by linux, as I was hoping to have it be my method of transferring files as I made the switch on this computer. This is a separate partition from the main installation if that helps. I have not yet installed, as I wish to overwrite the main partition.

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Best actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Sure. ntfs-3g is a best effort attempt to give Linux write access to ntfs partitions (ntfs is proprietary to microsoft). If you only need read access then the partition is natively readable by the kernel with no extra work. It depends how you mean by "accessed" which is very unclear.

If you want read access you can run:

sudo fdisk -l

You will see the ntfs partition name (lets pretend it /dev/sda1 for the sake of the example. Yours may be different). You can now run something like:

sudo mkdir /media/win; sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/win

and it will be accessible at /media/win

if you want write access you will need something like this:

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g; sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/win -t ntfs-3g -o rw,user,uid=1000

You should now be able to write to the partition as your user at /media/win

You can change /media/win to any folder you like, if you create the folder (mount point) in your home directory then you do not need sudo to create the directory as you have write access to your own data.

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Willrandship@gmail.com (willrandship) said : 		#2

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.

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Willrandship@gmail.com (willrandship) said : 		#3

BTW I haven't had a chance to try it yet, I'm waiting for a shipit cd. My burner software doesn't like me. But it looks like it should work quite well. Thank you.

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#4

Does it make sense to you?

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Willrandship@gmail.com (willrandship) said : 		#5

yes, I'm quite familiar with command line. the only part i'm not quite sure of is the sudo. Is that the symbol before the context or is it a command?

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#6

sudo is a better way of allowing users to run administritive tasks

User in windows are usually administrators by default, this is a massive security flaw as it allows all users to do anything, as well as the apps they run to acces all data. If a web browser has full access and accesses flash or java content with malicios code, this will then gain the access of the user and browser (admin) and be able to do anything it pleases

Linux has a better approach, ALL apps are ran with user (limited) access. If admin prioveledges are needed then a program called sudo (for command line) and gksudo / kdesudo (for gui apps in gnome and kde respectively) is needed. The user must ALSO be in the admin group to be able to even use sudo so the system admin/s have a greater level of control

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Willrandship@gmail.com (willrandship) said : 		#7

that does clear a lot up. thank you for your help. This news makes me happy as this would much easier than I first envisioned for doing file backups. i wish my ubuntu dvd would come faster!!!

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Tom (tom6) said : 		#8

Hi :)

You might like to try sliTaz in the meantime. It's only 30Mb and burns very well onto a cd, particularly the cheapest type of "write once" CDs that can only normally be bought in packs of 10 or more.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slitaz
At a very low burn speed you might find even a cd/dvd burner that doesn't like you might be able to cope and produce something workable.

Try it as a LiveCd first, just as one should with any linux distro before installing
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
If the LiveCd works you might want to install it to your hard-drive or something. I would recommend trying the dual-boot method
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
Most of us keep a dual-boot but it's particularly helpful to have a dual/multi-boot when you first start migrating from Windows to Linux.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromWindows
Note that sliTaz doesn't have a sudo command so you have to use "su" and then close the console/window that has SuperUser rights before you forget and start messing other things up ;) heheheh
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromLinux

Note that sliTaz is very much lighter-weight than Ubuntu so don't expect it to be as fully featured but it can still be quite good fun :) Moving from Windows to Linux can be quite a wrench, don't expect to understand all of it straight-away (hence the dual boot necessity , particularly at first) but moving between different versions of linux is really quite easy, they are very very similar.

Wolvix Hunter 1.1.0 is also great fun but at 450Mb is a bit more difficult to download and play around with. The Hunter version is really good with all the retro games and the full proper firefox and OpenOffice.
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

Anyway, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

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Tom (tom6) said : 		#9

Ooops, i meant to just pass on this link
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo
and then somehow ended up writing lots of other stuff and forgot the link

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Willrandship@gmail.com (willrandship) said : 		#10

Hehe, thanks for your help, but I got my cd today. Yay! Running it off of my Live CD now, but I can't seem to write to the partitions. I have already opened another question.

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Tom (tom6) said : 		#11

WooooHooo, that was fast !!
Nicely done and welcome to linux-land, especially the Ubuntu corner :)
Regards from
Tom :)