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I am very new to Linux but keen to learn. I am moderately happy to use command line etc although I will not understand what I am typing (yet). I have previously used Ubuntu but not gone into any command line stuff.

I will be doing an install of Win 7 then installing Ubuntu.

My question: I see that the Ubuntu installer will now auto detect the Win7 installation, and will offer to install alongside. Partitioning is done by dragging a slider between a single win partition and a single Ubuntu partition.

Is this an OK way to do things, or is it very sub-optimal such that you would recommend manual partitioning (to setup /swap etc manually)?

Thanks :)

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  • Are you asking whether different partitions are necessary, or are you asking whether you should do the partitioning manually? Or both?
    – Jonathan H
    Feb 1, 2014 at 12:14
  • I just make a line to be neat to read. I didn't change the content
    – Maythux
    Feb 1, 2014 at 12:14
  • @maythux Yes saw that, I prob didn't read correctly the first time
    – Jonathan H
    Feb 1, 2014 at 12:15

4 Answers 4

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The default partitioning arrangement is probably not much good. It isn't that much harder to create partitions manually. It's good to know exactly what is going on.

It's probably better to use GParted for partitioning. It can be found on the Ubuntu LiveCD (choose the Try Ubuntu option), or on a special GParted LiveCD, or on KNOPPIX, or just about anything else.

It is safe to shrink NTFS partitions in GParted, although it is best to run CHKDSK and make some backups before doing so.

Here is a partitioning scheme that worked for me. You can add a /home partition to it if you want to - I have managed without one.

Swap needs to be at least as big as your RAM. / (root) can be around 32GB, but definitely more than 16GB.

Before installing Ubuntu, reboot into Windows once or twice, possibly run CHKDSK again - this is to ensure that Windows fixes any issues.

After this, install Ubuntu; no need to resize anything in the installer.

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The other thing you might want to consider is LVM.. LVM pools one or more physical partitions (which it calls "physical volumes", or PVs) into a volume group (VG), from which you can then create logical volumes (LVs.) LVs can be composed of spans of "extents" from multiple PVs, giving you a lot of flexibility with your disk layout. If I'm sharing a disk with Windows, I tend to divide the free-space into a few PVs and merge them back together into a VG .. this means that if, at a later date, I want to "hand back" some of my disk to Windows, it is a possibility (vacate the PV, then remove it and format it as an NTFS partition.)

It looks like the desktop installer has (some) support for LVM as of 12.10:

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/11/03/ubuntu-12-10-installation-and-disk-partitioning-guide/

Just creating one PV and one LV should be enough to "future proof" you - any other changes (shrinking your LV, creating new PVs, etc.) could be done afterwards. This page looks like a good intro to LVM:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lvm

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You need a different partition to be able to use a different operating system. This has to do with the fact that on any computer, the bootloader needs to assign a different "location" (kindof) to each OS.

So you need at least two partitions, but I'll go ahead and say you need three actually; one for Windows, one for your root (/, where all your system/program files are) and one for your home (/home, where your own data is, with your preferences for the programs you use as well). More about Linux directory architecture

I would personally say it's better to do it manually, but you can't make a mistake at this stage: partitioning operations are very sensitive. But we can help.

A few questions for you:

  • How much space do you have on your hard drive?
  • How much RAM do you have on your computer?
  • How many partitions are there currently on your Hard drive?
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I'm not an expert but I installed Ubuntu along side Windows 8 after trying a few things.

I made a live USB running 'gparted' to see exactly what space was on hard drive, you can edit partitions within it.

I then installed Ubuntu (after testing it out) from live USB Ubuntu stick with the standard partitioning tools. I went through the manual options to see what happened but used most of the default options.

If you are not confident, I'd start by installing in a small partition as you can always expand it or format it if it doesn't work. Good luck

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  • Expanding a root partition is dangerous.. I don't think this is a good idea.
    – Jonathan H
    Feb 1, 2014 at 12:17

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