Hi 
Jump-drive or usb-stick or whatever is a great way of doing it. It is slower than an install on an internal hard-drive but it's not hugely noticeable
unless you use it as your main system. It's just a really neat way of
experimenting and playing around with it.
Sometimes uninstalling the Wubi meant you had to 'fix' the Windows boot-loader
again to remove the *buntu option from the boot-menu.
With the Wubi i think the initial default for the boot-loader is to boot
into Windows. With the proper dual-boot menu the initial default is
usually to boot into *buntu/Mint/whichever. It's not difficult to
change but only if you have a cheat-sheet to copy&paste from. I
tend to move Windows to the top of the menu and then set the default to
whichever one i need most often. Anyone that wants a quick post on how to do that just start a new thread here or email me off-list. I imagine most people here have their own how-to or cheat-sheet/quick-reference.
"Mounting" the Windows
side is now a lot easier in most Gnu&Linux systems but wasn't
obvious until fairly recently (a year or 2 ago). Again if you can find
the right how-to then it is easy and you can even do a quick edit to
make that happen automatically (although it's not recommended because,
again, it creates problems if there was a problem on the Windows system
so it's better to try to mount the Windows side AFTER booting up your
system and it only takes 2 clicks). Again if people want a quick guide
then you could probably get a few different answers on this list, any
one of which would probably be fine or email me off-list if you are shy
about going off-topic on this mailing list.
If you uninstall a proper dual-boot system then the
general advice is to 'fix' your Windows boot-loader first and then
consider removing the Gnu&Linux partitions. 'Obviously ' if you
delete the "drive" a program is installed on then it's going to be tough to try to run that program. So, it's better to use the boot-menu to
boot into Windows 1st and then fix the Windows boot-menu from there
BEFORE wiping the partitions that your boot-loader is on. It is kinda
contra-intuitive and people that only know Windows systems generally
give bad advice about this sort of thing.
If anyone else is trying out Gnu&Linux then please do ask us questions if you run into problems, however small they might seem or however
complicated. Most people on this list can probably point you to half a
dozen "how to" or documentation pages or simply tell you how to fix it
or point you to the proper forums for whichever distro. Trying to find
answers yourself runs the risk of finding ridiculous Windows-based
forums that are clueless.
It is tough to ask for help with something and then have enough patience
to wait for replies. Telephone support is sometimes better because at least you know when you have reached a live human being even if they do generally turn out to be a moron or working in a moronic system that favours closing tickets fast rather than really solving cases. On this list i have usually tried to make sure
people get some sort of response within a couple of hours even if i
haven't been able to help. I know what it's like to be a noob and ask a question and then sit there staring at the screen, hitting refresh and
not even really knowing if my question arrived anywhere at all while my boss
goes berserk behind me demanding an instant fix.
So i try to get a response out there as quickly as possible just to let
people know their message has arrived. However, that has got me into a
lot of trouble with the BoD and various individuals here who would
rather see people left hanging rather than give them any kind of moral
support.
A lot of other support forums and mailing list are worryingly silent in
comparison to this one because they are waiting for someone to come up
with the exact right answer. They don't see any value in making a guess and sometimes fear doing so in case they appear to be an idiot in front of their colleagues. On this list we fearlessly make guesses about what we think the person was really asking and build on each others answers until it becomes clearer what the person really needs to solve. So the person sees activity and then has to work out how to steer us rather than just getting a blank screen.
Sorry this is rambling without really going anywhere. Also i'm even more sorry to hear someone had such problems and didn't feel comfortable enough to ask off-topic questions here. Now that i know it was a Wubi install and that they kinda liked Mint we could easily solve most of Virgil's problems by just saying to install Mint properly. It's a bit like renaming the user-profile in that
1. all sorts of weird little odd behaviours suddenly vanish but
2. it's fairly rare to encounter those weirdnesses in the first place.
Regards from
Tom
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