Today I’ll show you how to set up a “dual boot” system that includes Linux (specifically Ubuntu Linux) alongside Windows XP or Vista. There will be no hard-drive partitioning (that’s scary!), instead Ubuntu will be installed in this case as if it were any other Windows program. This also makes it easy to uninstall later, in case you don’t like it.

Why would someone want to do this? Maybe you’re just beginning to really learn it, like I am. Maybe you’re a gamer who is just not a fan of the Windows interface and would like an alternative. Maybe you’re the power-user type and just wants to see what the fuss is about. Any reason you may have is valid. I’m just a big fan of free software who wants to help spread the word.

To get started, there’s no need to go to the Ubuntu site and download or order a CD-ROM. In this example, all you will need is to download and run the Wubi installer. Wubi started as an independent project, but is now officially supported by the Ubuntu community as a method of installation.

On the first screen, you’ll provide your desired username and password as well as designate the size of your “virtual disk” file, which your PC will see as a Linux file system.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, this next part may take a while. Wubi will download an image of the Ubuntu installation CD. As long as you’re on a broadband connection, this shouldn’t take more than an hour or two; Feel free to ignore the approximate download time at the onset.

After a few more installation screens, you’ll be prompted to reboot your system. Doing so should bring you to a new screen, giving you a choice whether you want to boot into Windows or Ubuntu. Select Ubuntu anytime to finish the installation.

Don’t panic when you see the formatting-partitions screen; Only the virtual disk file on which Ubuntu sits is being formatted.

After another reboot, enter your username and password and gaze upon a fresh pristine Linux desktop. It takes a little bit of getting-used-to, but the learning curve isn’t that steep.

Feel free to glance over the documentation to get your feet wet, check out our many articles on Linux use, and join the forums if you have any questions. Don’t be afraid of asking something “stupid”.  We were all n00bs once. Well, except me. I’m still a Linux n00b. But hey that’s what I’m taking out student loans for.

My choice of Ubuntu may have upset some Linux fans. Feel free to let me have it, and tell us why your favorite distribution is better, in the comments.

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StartUp Manager can be used to achieve this easily. You can install StartUp Manager by using your distribution’s package manager. Or check here. Once installed, it can be found under

System > Administration > StartUp Manager.

StartUp Manager can be used to easily customize a number of options that would otherwise require you to get your hands dirty by editing configuration files. As a start, you can change boot options such as the selection timeout and default operating system. If you have multiple operating systems, a useful option here is to make the Last Used operating system as the default choice, which would automatically boot the one you used the last time. Such a setting can be quite handy when you have a clear favorite in terms of operating systems and others are just installed for completeness.

You can also change the display resolution and the color depth if you are experiencing any problems with the display of the main menu. Uncheck “Show bootloader menu” if you don’t want to see the menu, and boot the default operating system each time. “Show bootsplash” can be used to add an image as background to the bootloader menu. We did a complete tutorial on it some time back. “Show text during boot” provides you with textual feedback of what is currently happening in the boot process.

The appearance tab allows you to customize the look of the bootloader menu as well as the Usplash theme. You can add colors to the bootloader menu, pick and choose the ones you like. A Usplash theme governs the progress bar display during the boot process. You can find some Usplash themes here, click on “Manage Usplash themes” and add the one you downloaded, then select the one you like and next time you boot, it would be there to greet you.

That is not all by any stretch of imagination. StartUp Manager allows you to do pretty advanced stuff. You can password-protect the bootloader or only recovery mode entries (a good choice) or the boot options by simply placing a check against the option and specifying the password.

If you are bothered by how cluttered the bootloader gets after a kernel upgrade, you can limit the number of entries from here in. Uncheck “Create boot option for recovery mode” to remove the recovery mode altogether if you are paranoid about someone getting into your system through recovery mode root prompt.

StartUp Manager is a no fuss tool which greatly simplifies tweaking and customizing of bootloader options and helps you manage Grub and Usplash settings easily without having to go in and tinker with the configuration files yourself. What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.

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Awesome powers in good hands but as you probably know “with great powers come great responsibilities”, so GRUB allows you to lock down some features and boot entries to allow only the intended users to go through.

When talking of security in computer systems one often needs to analyse the situation one is in and choose the appropriate options. If you have hackers getting physical access to your computer system the GRUB security measures won’t last a second (pretty much nothing would do). Your best bet in such a situation is to keep the hard drive encrypted, or if your hard drive can be password protected, use that option.

However, the majority of us don’t have to worry about hackers with physical access as much as our not-so-computer savvy relatives and friends fiddling around with the system. That is what we have the log in passwords for (they are not secure enough for hackers, trust me!), and that is the situation where you would be wise to make use of GRUB security features.

It is also a good practice to password protect the recovery mode entries as they can be used by any user to gain root access.

GRUB security features allow you to lock down the editing of boot options accessed by pressing the ‘e’ key and they allow you to password protect selected or all boot entries.

Follow the steps below to see how to password protect GRUB entries:

• Fire up the terminal. Type grub and press enter. The prompt would change to something like ‘grub>’.
• Enter md5crypt at the GRUB prompt. Type in the password when prompted for and press enter. The command will return you password encrypted as an md5 hash. You will need this so make a note of it or copy to the clipboard.



• Now we need to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. You are advised to make a backup of the file before editing it in case something goes wrong.



• Enter the line password –md5 <the copied md5 string from step 3> before the line that reads: “BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST” (actually it just needs to come before any of the boot menu entries, so you can write it anywhere as long as it is before them).
• If you save the file at this moment without any further edits you would have locked down interactive editing in GRUB. The administrator or in this case you would have to press ‘p’ key and enter the correct password to access these advanced options.
• If in addition you want to lock down specific menu entries so that anyone without the knowledge of the correct password cannot boot into that operating system you should add the word lock all by itself on a separate line just after the title specification for each entry in the menu.



• The next time anyone tries to select the locked menu entry he/she will be required to enter a password before he/she can boot into the corresponding operating system.
• To lock the recovery mode entries it is best to change the line lockalternative=false to lockalternative=true. This will lock down all future recovery mode entries as well even if you update the kernel.

What security features do you use to secure your system? Have you encrypted your hard drive? Or do you use a BIOS password? Let us know in the comments. Also check out how to add a custom background to GRUB menu

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	MZ Vista Force is a full-fledged tweaking machine! It’s broken down into Performance Tweaks, Windows Tweaks, Internet Optimizer, StartUp Manager, Services Manger, and Backup Restore. Use it to easily clean up junk files off your hard disk or speed up Internet browsing in Vista. You can also modify lots of esoteric settings like the speed at which the Start Menu displays and clearing out the page file at shutdown. Lots of options and a definite download!
	A Vista Tweaker from Stardock that packs a bunch of features into a small package. Disable unnecessary startup programs, update drivers that are out of date, get a benchmark of your computer performance, and lots more. The full version has some extra stuff for $20.
	Vista Logo Boot Generator is a free Windows Vista program that you can use to change the default boot screen in Windows to your own custom image. You can use an image of two sizes, either 800×600 or 1024×768, so you’ll have to scale any images you might want to use to that size first and they must be in .bmp format. So if you have a nice picture of your spouse or something else you wouldn’t mind seeing at startup, use this to customize the boot screen!
	Vista Boot Pro is a cool freeware app that you can use to easily mange the boot configuration and settings in Windows Vista without having to manually edit the BCDEdit file. You can also use Vista Boot Pro to back up the existing boot configuration before making changes in case something goes wrong. Also useful for multi-boot systems where you want to set the default OS, etc.
	What’s the most annoying thing about Windows Vista? Could your answer be UAC or User Account Control? Mine too! I hate it! It’s a pain! But it’s also bad to turn it completely off. So what to do? Use TweakUAC, a nifty little tool you can use to Turn off UAC, Turn on UAC, or put it into Quiet mode. Quiet mode means Administrators are not bothered with prompts when doing admin tasks, but it’s still remains on for programs, etc. Finally!
	Any other annoying Vista feature? How about those giant arrows on your desktop shortcuts? Do they really need to be THAT big? I mean come on! We know they are shortcuts. If you hate those little shortcut icons, you can get rid of them by using Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover! A free app that either lets your remove the shortcuts or make them smaller like they used to be in Windows XP. Ahhh that’s better!

Any other Windows Vista utilities that you just can’t live without? There are a couple of more that I like to use, but I’ll leave that for another post! Hope you enjoyed these!

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