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I know that for installing Ubuntu we need a boot drive ( / ) and home ( /home ) and ( /swap )

but I don't know what is swap and home

Now if I install Ubuntu beside windows without any home and swap drive is it okay ? can I work correctly with Ubuntu?

3 Answers 3

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/home is a separate partition for your personal data, in case you have to reinstall Ubuntu you won't lose it.

swap is a partition which is somehow the equivalent of pagefile.sys in Windows. It is used when you run out of RAM.

To install Ubuntu you need / partition and /swap. /home is optional but recommended.

So, in Windows right click Computer, then Manage and select Disk management. Delete or shrink the last partition and leave a minimum of 15 GB unallocated space (for a decent install).

After that boot from an Ubuntu DVD/USB and when greeted with the partitioning options select Something Else. Click the Unallocated space and press New button. Select at the end and use as swap. Let it be as much or a little more than your RAM.

Now click again the unallocated space and press New button and create an ext4 partition mounted as /.

If you want /home partition then leave some space from it and create it by choosing mount point /home and ext4 type.

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If you have a spare partition you want to install ubuntu onto then do an automatic install where Ubuntu will setup all the partitions it needs for you using the one you gave it alongside your Windows install...

/home is where programs store local data and settings and your own files separate from the ubuntu filesystem itself...

/swap is the partition it uses as extra memory when your computer runs out of actual hardware memory, it's a lot slower since it's using the hard-drive...

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/swap isn't really necessary if you've RAM more than 2GB. Its used by Ubuntu in case it runs out of (RAM) memory.

/home is similar to the C:\Users directory in Windows where the files and settings of every individual users are stored. You do not need to create a separate partition for home if you don't wish to. Ubuntu should be able to create a /home directory in the same partition as /.

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  • I have 4GB ram and I dont need to use /home so Can I just use install beside the windows ?
    – Alireza
    Apr 26, 2014 at 1:38
  • Yes, you can just install it besides Windows. You can put all your linux directories in a single partition. Just make sure you do not touch your Windows partition at all during the partitioning and the installation. Apr 26, 2014 at 5:34

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