Installing Ubuntu along side Windows 7 (Dual Boot)

I wanted to install Ubuntu next to Windows 7, without reinstalling Windows from scratch.
Apparently, Windows doesn't really like any other operating systems on the same computer (go figure), so it's important, that Windows is installed first. If not, and you update it at any point, it might screw everything up. So that's good to know.

Ubuntu can be downloaded for free from http://www.ubuntu.com/ and you can either burn it onto a CD or create a bootable flash drive.

To start from the CD, press F12 as soon as the Dell Logo appears on startup. This will get you into the startup menu, where you can choose the CD. Ubuntu will load and you can choose if you want to try it or install it. I tried it first to check what works. I found that the FN keys on the keyboard work fine, but I was not able to establish a internet connection using Wireless nor Ethernet.
On my super old Toshiba Satellite (2005) I could get an Ethernet connection straight away, so I guess, this is a problem with new drivers. How to download missing drivers for Dell Inspiron is described on the blog Agnipulse.

Clicking on the Install Ubuntu icon brings back up the install wizard. After skipping the wifi connection, I resized partition manually, under 'Something else'.

Under Linux, the partitions are labelled differently, but it's easy to recognise which one is which.

1. /dev/sda1 fat 16 is OEM
2. /dev/sda2 ntfs  is the Recovery
3. /dev/sda3 ntfs is the main HD
4. /dev/sda4 is the (not used) hibernation

I completely deleted sda4, which frees up 8 GB of space. Then I changed sda3 to be 100'000 MB (100 GB).
I then created 4 partitions using this online manual.
Ubuntu installed within 5 mins and then the laptop rebooted into Windows 7. I used EasyBCD, the software recommended on that website, to tell Windows, that it was sharing the drive with a linux OS.