Golden Windows7x64 img & dual boot (Win7/Ubuntu)

[Jonathan Cool]

I’m using successfully a Golden Win7x64 img in my entreprise since years.
Recently, someone asked to me a dual boot with Windows & Ubuntu on a school room (25 computers). Only on one school room, not all rooms.

With my Win7x64 Golden img, i’m using the “resize” image type to reduce the final size of the image.

So … with dual boot, i can’t use this option (i think, not sure).

Is there a way to deploy the Win7 Golden image and after to deploy a Ubuntu classic image on other partition ?

Actually, i’m using one partition with my Golden Image : in reallity : the 100mb reserved partition and the system partition.

I’m not sure if i can but i was thinking about that :

• with fog.postinit : initialize partitions : how ? i don’t know at this point
• using fog server to deploy Golden Image in a classic way
• using postdownload script to deploy the Ubuntu image and install, configure Grub (Win7 in first)

Do you think i’m on the good way ?

Or i’m totally out ?

Thanks you for you advice.

[Quazz]

Dual boot is tricky since you’re dealing with potentially two different OS types (eg Windows and Linux) which require different processing.

That said, I believe the best image type settings are Multipartition Single Disk with OS as “Other”.

Of course this means that deploying to devices with different disk sizes is either not possible or otherwise produces undesirable results.

But if all devices are the same anyway, then it should work fine!

Final note: resizable image type doesn’t actually reduce the size of the captured image (as far as I know), it just provides flexibility for deployment.

Empty space is still not captured under Multiple Partition capture and it will get compressed so the size should be comparable.

Only RAW capture produces larger images I believe.

[george1421]

As Quazz said its very tricky for a dual boot system especially with Win10 involved (yes I know you said win7). I think I would take the safe approach and make (on your reference image) a side by side install of Windows and Ubuntu. For the reference image pick a hard drive size that is smaller than the hard drives used on your campus. Once you get your reference image to boot reliably and work like you need it then capture the image as single disk non-resizable. Capture and deploy this way. If you want you can go back to your reference image and then capture a single partition (like ubuntu) so you could restore it individually if needed. With the reference image created in a side by side configuration your partition locations would be fixed so you could easily create post install scripts to tweak either image or the grub boot loader.

So what about the wasted (lost space)? Does it really matter in the classroom setting? Lets say you make your reference image 240GB that will deploy correctly to any 250GB and larger disk. Will that extra space be missed by the students? Does the extra (unused) space really matter? Only you can answer that.

[Jonathan Cool]

Thank you to all for your answers.

I think, i will use the safe approach : i will clone my existing Golden Win 7 image in Virtual Box.
With the cloned image, i will install Ubuntu with Grub and upload the new “Golden Dualboot Win7/Ubuntu image”.

In my ref image, i do … nothing 'cause all conf", softs and scripts are run at the post-deployement …

I will try this approach and “i will be back” with the results.

Thank you for “the right way”