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I am new to linux, but loving the ride! Here is my goal and what I have to work with

  • 1 laptop with a 120gb HDD
  • 1 PC with a 120gb SSD, ~2tb between 2 HDDs and multiple external drives
  • The latest build of Kubuntu
  • Windows 7 Retail (legit with key)

My PC is the family's "entertainment station". It's plugged into the living room TV. We play a lot of Windows games and I recently discovered the beauty and splendor which is Kodi.

The laptop I acquired this weekend from a friend. He got yet another new one and I scored a free laptop. It's not the best, but no complaints here :)

I just bought the SSD, and plan on putting a fresh install of Windows 7 and kubuntu on it, along with a small ammount of games so they boot really fast. I have a decent rig, but I think it's crippled by windows.

I want to do the same with the laptop, mostly kubuntu, but the wife can play her games on windows if the kids and I want to watch a movie on the PC/TV

This is where you folks come in.

Is it possible to install a really tiny version of windows on the laptop using the same key as my PC? It's ok if it never updates or whatever, I just need it to run SimCity.

How should I divide the 120gb SSD? I want to primarily use Kubuntu, but still have windows 7 with a few Windows only games/programs (photoshop, etc)

Is there a way I can "trim the fat" on my Win 7 install?

The PC dual boot is daunting. I have 2 ntfs drives full of data I'd like to be able to access from both OSes that I don't want to lose.

Please let me know if there is more information required. I'm very excited to break the shackles of M$.

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There is a not a really good way to "cut the fat" off of windows. Since it's not open source, you can't really change anything. If I were you, it would allocate about 60-80GBs to windows, since it is a much larger intall, and have the rest of the space for Kubuntu.

As far as the activation key goes, that is only good on one computer (more specifically, it ties to the motherboard, but that is more complicated) so if you want windows, you have to get another copy (somehow, legally or not). As far as accessing files from both OSes, you cant access programs or things like that (so you will have to install them twice, once for each OS), but depending on the format/encoding of the drive, you could be able to access files like .mp4 and .txt or others from both OSes.

Let me know if this answered all of your questions or not.

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