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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Vista/Ubuntu - Partition strategy advice req'd



OinkOink2
December 26th, 2008, 04:04 AM
Greets to the Ubuntu community,

I've Google'd phrases like "partition strategy Vista Ubuntu" but there seems to be a large lack of decent documentation on the best strategy to employ for this issue. But essentially I want to install Ubuntu (8.10) but keep my Vista installation.

Also, I recently fixed a dumb installation I'd done which has taken the best part of a full day [today] because I was too eager to install Linux, so I really don't want to make a repeat performance!

I have a 150GB HD in my laptop -

'C:\' which occupies 99.3GB with just 55.3GB occupied by Vista (25GB of that is my Documents (Music, Pictures, etc)) leaving around 40GB space on C:\.
The rest of the space on the disk 49.69GB of 'unallocated space.'
Due to having spent today reinstalling Vista and restoring some backed up documents this is a fresh recovery and is very stripped of all the programs I used to have. But I'm quite liking the minimalistic installation really so I think I'll keep it that way.

My question is this. I'm looking for a good partition strategy. Ideally I would like to have my HD split like follows

30-35GB for Vista (which after the next point the math there will work out)
A new volume for my Documents which are currently occupying 25GB of space on C:\
A SWAP file for Vista
So this is how I'd like things to look for Vista. For Ubuntu I'm unsure and hopefully this is where you guys' input will come in handy! I'm a Linux newbie but keen to learn: as far as I understand it I'll need to create 4 partitions out of the remaining unallocated space for '/boot' '/' '/usr' and '/swap'...?

Bearing in mind that I would like my Documents partition to be Linux readable so I can cross-use the files in either OS, would that need to be formatted as FAT32, NTFS or Ext3? I'm unsure!

Is it realistic to have this many volumes on one HD without it being a problem?

oilchangeguy
December 26th, 2008, 04:10 AM
this may be of some help:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

also i might suggest that when you do a google search, keep it simple. in your case something like dual boot vista and ubuntu partition size. many people would not include the word strategy in their search. just type key words. it does not have to be a sentence that even makes sense.
and you don't need a swap file for vista. windows already has this taken care of. it's called page file (in xp anyway) i hope you understand that all swap/page file is, is virtual ram. most modern computers will never use it. they have enough physical ram.

Vakman
December 26th, 2008, 04:13 AM
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_f irst.htm
Also may be of use to you.

oilchangeguy
December 26th, 2008, 04:20 AM
and that 25gb of documents, and music and pics make sure you back it up BEFORE you attempt to install ubuntu.

OinkOink2
December 26th, 2008, 04:38 AM
Cheers guys.