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I am installing Ubuntu with the Windows installer, however, I am using Windows 8. I need to know if there will be problems with installing it using Windows 8, and I need to know which installation size I should use? 4GB, 18GB, etc.

Also, is it possible to actually install it on a USB drive? The option was available in the installation, but I was not sure if it was safe or not. I would really appreciate some answers.

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  • You can install onto a flash drive. I recommend at least 16GB, but if you install on an external hard disk or your internal disk, you'll be better off with at least 100GB.
    – nanofarad
    Sep 22, 2012 at 19:53

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The Wubi installer does not at this time support Windows 8. Microsoft have changed the bootloader so it may take some time for the developers to change the Wubi installer. They will certainly wait until after Windows 8 is released before they do much with it.

By all means do a full install onto a USB drive, as long as you can set the BIOS to boot off it. Obviously, it's going to boot and run quite a bit slower than if it was on the SATA hard drive.

You could also set up a proper dual boot system, however the install will resize your Windows partition to make space for Ubuntu. I strongly recommend that before you do this you defrag the NTFS partition and run chkdisk on it, and make a backup of all your important data. Resizing a partition and moving the data is never something you want to take lightly.

As far as the size is concerned, it really depends on what you want to do. 16Gb is more than enough to just try Ubuntu and do a bit of web browsing. If you want to install lots of programmes and have a lot of data then 60+Gb would not be too unreasonable (but is getting a bit beyond what Wubi was intended for anyway). If you want to edit movies or rip your DVD collection, then you are going to need hundreds of Gigabytes.

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  • Wubi does work on Windows 8, but you may have problems if 'hybrid sleep' is enabled. A normal dual boot with Windows 8 will also have problems with 'fast-start' (but not Wubi) if you want to access the Windows 8 partition bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ntfs-3g/+bug/1043149
    – bcbc
    Sep 24, 2012 at 4:19
  • If Ubuntu is installed on the same NTFS partition as Windows 8 then the Wubi install will not finish correctly because of this bug. Since the purpose of Wubi is as a way for Windows users to try Ubuntu easily without modifying their system, any amount of work-arounds becomes a moot point. Work needs to be done to make the wubi installer foolproof under Windows 8, and the problem doesn't seem to have been acknowledged at this time. Sep 24, 2012 at 16:31
  • Wubi works fine on the same partition as Windows 8 except in specific circumstances in addition to having hybrid sleep is enabled. And this is a Windows bug... restarting the computer but leaving the computer in a quasi-hibernated state is not likely the intention of Microsoft. Besides, you are more likely to have problems installing a normal dual-boot which you recommended, since mounting and therefore resizing the Windows partition will fail. If you think Canonical have plans to hold off Wubi until it is 'foolproof', please supply references. A glance at this forum will prove otherwise.
    – bcbc
    Sep 24, 2012 at 18:49
  • Which forum? Mostly I've seen work arounds (not ideal) and bug reports seem to be sparse with little response. Please give a reference for resizing being a problem. My understanding is that the partition is not mounted during a re-size operation. I didn't say Canonical would do anything, I said Wubi needs to be foolproof - and I mean it. Sep 24, 2012 at 19:17
  • You said "They will certainly wait until after Windows 8 is released before they do much with it". And later " "Work needs to be done to make the wubi installer foolproof under Windows 8". So I assume you must mean that Canonical will make it foolproof, and that they will certainly wait, since they control Wubi development. I haven't seen anything to substantiate this claim. Re. resize I said mounting would fail - the installer checks the contents prior to proceeding. I can't supply a reference, but I would file a bug if that's not the case (a simple test can confirm this).
    – bcbc
    Sep 24, 2012 at 19:35

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