What is best hard disk configuration for Ubuntu 11.10?

Question

I have an old dell optiplex 260, built in graphic, Lan & sound. With Pentium 4 (2.80GHz), 1GB ram and 80GB hard disk.
Can i install Ubuntu 11.10 on it?

I'm dying to check it out first before I change it in my regular work laptop. Please tell me how to create partition and in which size for best results?

Answer 1

if you just want to try it out I suggest you create a Live CD. and boot from that and click on the alternative try it out.

OR

you could go to the Ubuntu homepage and try out Ubuntu via a webbrowser.

When you want to install it you can easily go back to the live cd and choose Install instead of try it out. In the next menu you will be asked if you want to make a partition or if you just want to use the whole disk.

If you have any further questions, just ask in the comment and I will explain it more in my answer.

Answer 2

The installer will recommend you the best option during install. (Usually one swap one "/" partition)

My manual choice is this (adjusted to your configuration). I create 4 partitions, one for boot, one swap one for / and one for home.

    /dev/sda1 -> /boot (ext3 or ext2) 100MB
    /dev/sda2 -> swap (swap) 512 MB (some say that you need 1GB or even 2GB)
    /dev/sda3 -> / (ext4 or xfs) 9 GB (it will be enough)
    /dev/sda4 -> /home (xfs or ext4) the rest ~ 70 GB

If you set your /home to ext4 you need to lower the reserved space size from 5% to 0%. Don't try btrfs, it is not good enough at the moment.

Try first a live CD and check if everything works (wlan, graphics, Unity 3D, speed) if you feel that it is slow, try Xubuntu, it has less requirements.

Answer 3

Will it work?

Probably. But why not try a livecd first?

http://ubuntu.com/download

How to partition?

The installer will ask if you want it to automatically partition your hard drive. It has sane defaults. No need to manually do it unless you like tinkering.

Answer 4

For a Pentium 4 I strongly recommend installing Lubuntu. It uses the Light X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) on top of Ubuntu, making it very light and offering the latest software available in Ubuntu. I've ran Lubuntu (versions 10.10 and 11.04) on Pentium 4's and it works like a charm. With 1GB RAM, you may want to try Xubuntu as suggested by gajdipajti or even normal Ubuntu could work (though you may prefer using a Gnome-Classic desktop with the default Ubuntu if you find Unity to be slow).

For disk partitioning the default should be fine, 2GB SWAP, then the rest for the operating system in Ext4. You may want to create a third partition (also Ext4) for stashing backups/files/etc of 20, 30 or 40GB. Even if you install a lot of applications from the repositories, it's unlikely that your operating system will exceed 10GB (without counting personal files).