luv2runxc
December 18th, 2010, 07:36 AM
Hi, I am new here and new to Ubuntu. I'd like to dual-boot it with Windows 7, but I'm not sure exactly how I should set things up. Searching has helped but I would really appreciate advice specific to my scenario.
What I'm looking for: Windows 7 to run a couple games (mainly Starcraft II) and for anything that doesn't run on mac or linux, and Ubuntu to do most of my normal everyday stuff (documents, programming projects, web browsing, listening to music).
Hardware: 1TB hard drive, 4GB RAM, AMD Athlon II 435 processor.
My current plan for partitions:
~100 GB: Windows 7 64-bit installation and program files. I've installed Starcraft II, Matlab, and OpenOffice and already hit 50 GB somehow, and want to leave some breathing room.
~20 GB: "/" root partition; Ubuntu v10.10 64-bit installation and program files. I'm planning on installing things like Eclipse and Matlab for programming, possibly more in the future - do I need more space for this?
~5 GB: /home partition for settings. If I'm creating a separate data partition (below), is this a good idea and a good size? I'm not clear on the role of the home folder exactly. Do I even need it separate from the Ubuntu root partition?
~850 GB: data partition that will be shared by Windows 7 and Ubuntu.
Swap space: just use a 4 GB swap file in the Data section rather than a swap partition. Reasoning: 4 GB of RAM is a good amount, so I should need swap rarely. The speed hit shouldn't be a huge deal, and I already have 4 partitions planned which is a lot, plus a few system partitions. If I really need more memory I figure I should get more RAM, I mainly want to rely on swap for hibernating only.
Does this setup seem like a good idea? Are the sizes ok? What changes should I make?
(edit) Can/should I put /home in the Data partition, and can I still format it so that Windows can access everything there? This would be the most convenient option, cause everything I want to back up would be in one partition!
Thanks in advance for any advice!!
What I'm looking for: Windows 7 to run a couple games (mainly Starcraft II) and for anything that doesn't run on mac or linux, and Ubuntu to do most of my normal everyday stuff (documents, programming projects, web browsing, listening to music).
Hardware: 1TB hard drive, 4GB RAM, AMD Athlon II 435 processor.
My current plan for partitions:
~100 GB: Windows 7 64-bit installation and program files. I've installed Starcraft II, Matlab, and OpenOffice and already hit 50 GB somehow, and want to leave some breathing room.
~20 GB: "/" root partition; Ubuntu v10.10 64-bit installation and program files. I'm planning on installing things like Eclipse and Matlab for programming, possibly more in the future - do I need more space for this?
~5 GB: /home partition for settings. If I'm creating a separate data partition (below), is this a good idea and a good size? I'm not clear on the role of the home folder exactly. Do I even need it separate from the Ubuntu root partition?
~850 GB: data partition that will be shared by Windows 7 and Ubuntu.
Swap space: just use a 4 GB swap file in the Data section rather than a swap partition. Reasoning: 4 GB of RAM is a good amount, so I should need swap rarely. The speed hit shouldn't be a huge deal, and I already have 4 partitions planned which is a lot, plus a few system partitions. If I really need more memory I figure I should get more RAM, I mainly want to rely on swap for hibernating only.
Does this setup seem like a good idea? Are the sizes ok? What changes should I make?
(edit) Can/should I put /home in the Data partition, and can I still format it so that Windows can access everything there? This would be the most convenient option, cause everything I want to back up would be in one partition!
Thanks in advance for any advice!!