Ever since I joined FICO and received my laptop, I had been wondering if I could install Ubuntu on it. Now officially I might not be allowed to, but what if I take a chance and do it myself. However, there was a small glitch.
The laptop that we use comes with Data Protector installed. The Data Armor software keeps the hard disk encrypted at all times. Even while windows is running, the Data Armor is operational silently in the background. This was a variable in the equation of which I had no clue.
Specifically, my questions were whether Wubi would be allowed to modify the boot entry to make the presence of Ubuntu known? If yes, would it be able to boot into Ubuntu? And if true, would the usage of Ubuntu without Data Armor break my system in any way?
I tried googling around without any success. I was left alone, with no explanations or warnings. And messing around with your official computer’s boot record was too big a risk to take in the starting months of job,
So I waited. I thought of later buying a personal laptop and installing Ubuntu in it. But the impatient man that I am, I was at times tempted to just experiment.
Today was one of those days when the urge to experiment and know overcame my restrictive self. I decided to try it out. In the worse case I would go to the technical department and say sorry for the damage.
I downloaded Wubi. It said it would need to download 700 mb’s of Ubuntu unless a Desktop CD was provided. Yay ! I remembered I had the Desktop CD. A few of franctic search, and I found my CD hiding under a pile of rubbish junk. Excitedly I removed the CD from its cover, slid it into the drive and started the Wubi application.
It recognized my CD and started unpacking the contents. After copying all the files onto the disk, it asked for a reboot. I did so immediately.
Now was the time I would find out if the attempt was successful or was it thwarted by my foe named Data Armor. I kept my fingers crossed.
The boot screen came on for a few seconds and went off. This was normal. The screen was blank for a few seconds which stretched into infinity. I was worried now. If the Data Armor screen failed to show up, I would know that I have messed up things big time and would have to be prepared for some serious lectures the following Monday.
But while all these thoughts were engulfing me, the Data Armor screen came up. Yipee. I was too glad. I entered my account id and password. Upon checking the credentials, the computer restarted as it always does. Now the question was whether the dual boot option would show up. If the installer was successful in modifying the Master Boot Record, I should be getting an option to select either of the operating systems. And get, I did those.
My happiness was beyond measure. I selected Ubuntu and pressed the Enter button. I was jumping up and down, congratulating myself for having the courage to try out Wubi and get rewarded. The Ubuntu boot screen flashed on before me. Woohoo !!
But a few joys are short lived. Immediately a blank screen replaced the bar. Now this was wrong. Then a line mentioning BusyBox came up. The next line was a prompt saying
initramfs >
Wait there, this is not done. At this point of time, my Ubuntu should have been booting up and starting the automatic install procedure. I hard booted my computer and logged into Windows.
Cursed ! I was this close to escaping the fuss of Windows and enjoy the pleasures of Ubuntu. I googled up immediately to know if my setup had gone wrong or was it plain impossible to install Ubuntu in the encrypted hard disk. And this is when I stumbled across the FAQ of Wubi which has mentioned that Wubi fails if the hard disk is encrypted. Damn you Data Protector.
But at least I am happy that I tried. I can now rest peacefully knowing that its not possible as long as the disk is encrypted. The suffering of not knowing is cured.
So long as I do not find another way to get Ubuntu running on my machine, I shall tolerate Windows.
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