I’ve been all Ubuntu on you laptop for a long time and successfully found ways out of using almost all windows only programs for a while now. Sadly, at the end of things there are just a somethings you just can’t use linux for, like tethering iPhones and iTunes. Smaller rarely used programs just don’t have alternatives and some hardware like the iPhone will only work with windows and OSX. However, I’m in no way giving up on Ubuntu so I broke down and decided to dual boot.

The first thing I would suggest when dual booting is installing windows first and Ubuntu second because windows doesn’t always play nicely with others and I much prefer GRUB boot-loader to the windows one. When installing windows I completely deleted all pre-existing partitions (after backing up everything important of course), and created a new partition for windows around 30GB to leave room for the OS, some apps, and anything else I may have to add in the future.

When I installed Ubuntu I formatted a EXT3 partition for it around the same size and used the Ubuntu disc utility to format the rest of the drive FAT32. The FAT drive can be shared by both operating systems so I won’t have to waste space putting all the same music and movies on both partitions or ever have to wonder which OS that song is in. I still use Ubuntu as my main OS but it is nice to have windows around when I really need it. Just don’t go crazy trying to remember which side the window buttons are on.