Dual booting partitions questions

[hariskar]

I have windows 7 in partition C. I want to install Ubuntu to dual boot with windows. The disk has 2 more partitions D and E. D is empty and the size is about 292GB.
How many partitions should I make in D? What size should they have? What should I install in each partition? What should I do to dual boot?
Thank you!

[darkod]

You will need to delete the D partition, not "make partitions" inside it. Ubuntu doesn't install on ntfs. Once you delete the partition it will leave the space as unallocated. Leave it as such, don't create partitions in windows.

If you use the auto method to install, it will use the unallocated space and install with the standard two partitions, root and swap.

If you want different layout, you will need to install manually. In that case you can create a third partition for /home for example.

The size of partition depends. For swap you usually do 2GB or if you want to hibernate you need about 1.5 x RAM size. All the rest goes to the root partition.
Or if you make the separate /home, make root 20GB and the rest for /home.
You usually make partitions with ext4 filesystem, and the swap is only used as swap area, with no mount point.
The mount points for the other partition are / for root and the /home for the separate /home if you are making it.

[hariskar]

Thank you, if I do all above, will it dual boot, or do I have to do something else

[darkod]

It will dual boot. The grub2 bootloader detects win7 automatically and creates the dual boot menu.

[hariskar]

The new partitions have to be primary or logical?

[darkod]

Logical. It's better and it will give you more flexibility later.

[ALinuxWindowsBalance]

Be careful how you name your partitions.
Windows "names" the drives with letters, and shouldn't be confused with actual labels.
Same with Linux. /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3 are all partitions but re-named and ordered.

[hariskar]

So, sda has sda1 (windows), free space 314GB and sda2 ntfs. I should choose free space and create 2 logical partitions (swap and /)? I did this but then nothing booted...
Thank you for replies!

Edit: Now I do it again: In free space above I created e logical partitions sda5 for / ext4 287GB, sda6 ext4 for /home 20GB and sda7 for swap 6GB. I chose device for boot loader sda5. Let's see what happens..

[cybrsaylr]

If you want different layout, you will need to install manually. In that case you can create a third partition for /home for example.

Have heard a few say this is a good way to go.
How do you do it manually?
Can It still be done by repartitioning if you already have 12.04 installed or do you have to do a fresh install?

Right now I just have 2 partitions: 111GB for 12.04 and 8GB for swap.

[darkod]

So, sda has sda1 (windows), free space 314GB and sda2 ntfs. I should choose free space and create 2 logical partitions (swap and /)? I did this but then nothing booted...
Thank you for replies!

Edit: Now I do it again: In free space above I created e logical partitions sda5 for / ext4 287GB, sda6 ext4 for /home 20GB and sda7 for swap 6GB. I chose device for boot loader sda5. Let's see what happens..

The device for the bootloader is only /dev/sda, the MBR of the disk. If it has a number like /dev/sda5 it means a partition and you won't see the grub bootloader since the system is looking for the bootloader on the MBR of the disk, not on a partition.