Bitcoin Forum

Running Ubuntu on Windows 7 on a partitioned drive?

Is this a bad idea, and should I run it on it's own?
I'm trying to create a secure bitcoin client & wallet computer.

Thanks in advance, everyone.

How do you mean ? What with split partitions ? Yes it's safe if you know what you are doing. If not I'd be very cautious because if you try to resize your partition and get it wrong you've lost your data.

I would try and make a live usb stick with ubuntu on and use that. It's more secure by far because your coins are not on your PC. Or you could check out my live os linuxcoin. It has a grsecurity / pax hardened kernel and the bitcoin client has been compiled with hardening flags.

I guess it's called a dual boot.
Here is a video showing someone installing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ_UeHokmGM

All I want and need right now, is a safe computer that can be used to store bitcoins, like my own bank. Very secure. It may be offline sometimes, but it could be online most of the time. I'm not too computer savvy. I barely understood what you said in your post. Mainly the last sentence. Do you actually think it's better to keep it on a USB stick with ubuntu, instead? What would I do to use linuxcoin? That's a complete seperate operating system you designed for bitcoins?

Yep dual boot is what your looking for. You could dual boot but the major disadvantage is like I said setting thing up on an existing HDD with data you don't want to loose. You can use gparted to resize/repartition your HDD and install ubuntu then use grub to dual boot.

Yes linuxcoin is a OS I've designed for bitcoin. it's debian based and contains everything needed to buy / sell / trade / mine and just about anything else you can do with bitcoin. It's security has been beefed up to keep your coins safe and it boots from a USB flash drive. You won't need to partition your drives just plug the USB stick into any computer and linuxcoin will load with your wallet and when you shutdown it's like it you was never there.

Well i'm running windows on a net surfing computer, so I was going to buy a new laptop just for this. They are relatively cheap at about $250. I would not lose any data because the computer is new.

Am I to understand I could download the linuxcoin after I have ubuntu installed, and use that alongside, for extra safety? Or are you implying I don't need ubuntu at all? I'm just not experienced in programming, so the easiest route for me is the best, but I want safety overall. I'm thinking if I have ubuntu installed, then running linuxcoin might be easier. Am I mistaken? And thanks for taking the time to help out, drgr33n.

If you can, it would be better to have this setup on a completely different system.
I use a cheap laptop with ubuntu just for my bitcoin wallet.

Yeah, Miningbuddy, that's what I plan to do. So, i'm not too versed in this stuff and the new laptops have windows 7 installed already on them. I know windows is an open window for trojans and viruses so I want to run ubuntu. I do not know if I need to uninstall windows first then install ubuntu or just do that dual boot in that video I posted, and if it would be as secure. That's my main question here. From what I'm gathering from drgr33n, as long as I do not have important data on the windows partition, it should be alright. What do you think? Is this as safe, with windows running at all? Mind you, the computer will not be used for internet surfing.