So my brother says I can basically run the Ubuntu OS from the optical drive without actually installing it on my HDD.  The reason I'm curious about this is my new box gets here today and the guts come tomorrow... but my copy of XP doesn't get here until next week or so and I want to make sure everything is connected properly and such.  I figured I could just run Ubuntu from the DVD-ROM until XP gets here and then I'll install that.

Any flaws with this logic?

I wasn't planning on saving anything, really.  Just playing around with it a bit... making sure I can get the computer to boot and whatnot.

How hard would it be to do a dual boot system with XP and Ubuntu?  If I install Ubuntu how would I go about adding XP to the system as well without it exploding everywhere?

You'd want to install XP first.  Ubuntu will take over the boot process with GRUB.  If you install Ubuntu first then XP will use ntldr and you won't be able to access Ubuntu without editing things manually.  I'm sure you can find information on how to do it in the Ubuntu wiki, but it's the harder way to go.

The general rule is to always install the older operating system first.  Failing that, install Linux last because it's more multi-boot friendly (because it has to be).

If you multi-boot, I recommend getting the ext2 driver for Windows (http://www.fs-driver.org/) and mounting your Ubuntu ext3 partition read-only in Windows.  Mounting the NTFS partition from Ubuntu is much better documented an easier to find.

If you have a lot of RAM and don't need Windows for games or anything too complex, then I recommend just using an emulator like VirtualBox, VMware, or similar.  Sharing data can be annoying, but it's not too bad.

Okay.  Got the 64-bit disc and had it somewhat up and running on the new Dell that one of my friends in another research group had.  Thing is, I have a very stupid question.

How I mine for GUI?

It booted up past the bit with the orange progress thing bouncing back and forth then it got me to a command prompt... and then it sat there.  What command do I use to bring up the cube... or do I just need to use a bit more patience?

Edit to Add:  Nevermind the previous.  I have it up and running on one of the desktops in my boss's lab.  Its the i386 version, but at least I know it's good and that it's a nice plug & play which has Firefox built in.

I'm half tempted to install it on my laptop at work as well, but I think I'll hold off... for now.  It does look neat, though.  Anything I should do to play with it for the moment?

Well, it's got the nifty fly-in and fly-out windows.  Anything else specific to the OS that's neat to check out?  I thought I saw Kyle posting about playing with the desktop as a cube before, but it was only two desktops at work.  I saw it also came with Open Office which was pretty nice.  I couldn't get it to recognize my boss's dual monitor setup, though, which was a bit of a pain.

So what do I need to do Windows emulation with it?  I didn't try playing with any flash applications, but I'm assuming they'll work?  Maybe?  Anything good to show off how fast it is?  Anything I can install to be able to play old-ass games like Dungeon Keeper 2?  I have a feeling my new rig might just be able to handle it...

So I tried the LiveCD stuff again today and got another initramfs error.

Thoughts?

I just learned my mobo has a version of linux on it which is kind of neat.  I'm curious about playing with Ubuntu a bit more now, especially since there's plenty of room for dual booting.

Should I give Ubuntu its own partition?