Dear Ubuntu friends/nerds/boffins:
I want to install Ubuntu 9.04 on a new system with XP for a dual boot.
It has only one 320Gb ntfs partition with XP on. I have defragmented it.
1)
I read in the link below for 9.04 in the section for Dual-Booting that I should use GParted to shrink the windows partition for XP.
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Jaunty
I dont understand why, because the installation disk has an option, see (2)
2)
the option "use the largest continuous free space".
There is a slide bar, I can move it to the left to increase Ubuntu size.
The slide bar stops at left at about 5.9 Gb. Is this the upper end of XP,
and can I assume anything to the right (e.g. 20Gb) wont destroy XP ?
3) If I put the slider at e.g. 20Gb, and proceed, what will I get?
will the installer re-size and create new partitions for / and /swap and /home?
Will I have a choice in how big they are?
What will they be, EXT3 ?
4) If I completed option 3 and install, and I boot into the XP, will XP sort out it's shrinked size?
5) will Ubuntu be able to read & write files in the XP ntfs partition ?
(if not, I have to make a common additional partition with fat32 ?)
ALTERNATIVES:
If option 2 does not give me much choice,
and I use the manual option, how do I shrink the XP partition safely?
I have sda1 size=320062Mb, used=6386Mb.
Should I click on it, edit,
and choose new part size e.g. 20000Mb and select "do not use the partition"?
and then divide the remainder in / and swap and /home ?
Thank you very much, I await your answers before I screw up anything.
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