Problems when Installing Ubuntu alongside Windows

Question

I've just bought a new Acer computer and have been trying to install Ubuntu it. I've been following the steps as I did on my other computer and get this error when selection the option: "Something else".

I've selected the partition and clicked continue and got this error:

What does this message mean and if I keep going what would happen to my computer. Any help would be awesome.

Answer 1

You should do what it says; Go Back & check your installation settings. Have you allocated enough swap space for the install?

Answer 2

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert and anything you see below was figured out by my own trial and error. This answer isn't necessarily the most correct answer, but it is what worked. Also, make sure to read the whole thing through before attempting any of it.

Before following the instructions below, please install rEFIt or rEFInd¹.

In order to fix this issue I needed to create an extra partition. Follow the steps below. The first one should be done in OSX's Disk Utility and the rest inside GParted after selecting "Try Ubuntu."

1. Make sure to have already resized your "Macintosh HD" partition so that you have room for the new partitions (~50 GiB is what I chose). Note: This is the only step you should be doing in an OSX-native program like Disk Utility and not within Ubuntu.
2. Create a new partition called "booatloader" with file system ReiserFS. I made this partition 500 MiB. (I'm not exactly sure if the file system or size matters)
3. Create a new linux-swap partition that's about 1 GiB. I called this one "swap".
4. Create an ext4 partition called "primary" using the rest of your unallocated space.

After following the instructions above, GParted should look similar to the following image. Keep in mind that I took this after installation. The labels for my linux-swap and ext4 partitions disappeared and the key/exclamation icons were added after installation by Ubuntu. Also, no need to set a bios_grub flag for the ResiserFS partition, this was also automatically added post- (or during-) installation.

Now that the partitions are set up, go back to the desktop, click on "Install Ubuntu 12.04" (this should also appear in the menubar on the left if it's not on the desktop), and follow along below

1. Go through the options (personalizing them however you like) until you get to the "Installation type" screen that asks you how you want to install Ubuntu.
2. On the "Installation type" screen, select "Something else" and continue (press "Install Now").
3. You'll now arrive at a window that lists all the partitions you have. Identify the "bootloader" partition (if the labels don't show, identify it by the device, type, or size columns) and double click on it.
4. A window that says "Edit partition" should popup. Select the option field next to "Use as:" and click on the value that says "Reserved BIOS boot area" (figure below). Press "OK."
5. Identify the ext4 partition you just created and bring up the "Edit partition" window.
6. Set the "Use as:" value to "Ext4 journaling file system," check the format option. Make sure to also set the mount field to /. Press "OK."
7. Go ahead and continue the process, personalizing the results as you desire.

From here, everything should work fine. Make sure to have rEFIt or rEFInd installed so that you can boot into Ubuntu later¹.

^{1. It turns out that if you get stuck while booting, instead of using a program like rEFIt and it's predecessor, you can just hold the alt+option key to boot into a partition/disk/whatever.}

Source: this answer by jeremy.

Answer 3

The SWAP should be as large as your RAM in a desktop system, to prevent system freezes and avoid uncommon and "uncomfortable" configurations.
You should also leave a small space for the "BIOS" boot area of 2 mb: don't worry you are not loosing space, because there is always some free space on the HD after any OS installation.
If you create many partitions for Linux, the system will be more stable and a bit faster; there are also many technical advantages for the maintenance.
Only remember that the system grows with the time and needs space (it's normal), so make a large root partition if you need lots of software.
Happy tweaking.

Answer 4

I recommend you do not use the "Something Else" option, and use the default option that says "Install Ubuntu Alongside your Existing OS". This option automatically allocates the required swap memory according to the specs of your machine, and it usually avoids most fatal installation errors

Answer 5

I have been going through this same problem for the past 3 days. I burned a 12.04 LTS iso and 13.04 iso, here is what I found:

Dual Booting from Wubi

Known install issues for versions higher then 12.04 LTS

Instructions/Guide on Dual Booting

Manually Setup A Ubuntu-Windows7 Dual Boot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W7XYAB4cLc Instructions on setting up a manually dual boot by partitions hard disk

My Solution

What has worked for me was creating a live-disk of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and booting from disk. When prompted to select which type of installation you want to do, select boot alongside Windows 7/8. If not just erase you Ubuntu that is already there and reinstall.

When making partitions for Ubuntu you need a Primary and Swap space. The primary has to be mounted to "/" root. You can also only have 4 sda's active at one time. If not you will have to create a new partition table and erase Windows.

Ubuntu versions higher then 12.04 LTS seem to have a lot of installing problems from what I have seen. Also when trying to upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to 12.10 there will be a bug where the system doesn't boot. To avoid all this trouble, stick with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS for best results.

Answer 6

If you want to install Ubuntu alongside Windows then don't choose "something else". Just install alongside it.

Answer 7

This sounds like a Windows 8 UEFI/Secure Boot issue. There is already a lengthy post detailing how to install on such systems.

Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI