14.04 on a Win 7 HP p7-1234

[sks24]

I'm trying to install 14.04 and during the install process it says that the installer does not find any other operating systems on the machine. So it appears that the only option is to set up the partitions manually. Could somebody walk me through the sequence of how to complete this installation using the, uh, manual configurator? There's 8 GB of RAM in the machine, so maybe the swap partition should be that big, too.

I've attached some screenshots of the configuration.255235255236

Thanks in advance,
Scott

[yancek]

Thefirst image you posted shows the first partition as fat32, then two ntfs partitions (sda3, sda4), the unknown on the second partition (sda2) and some unallocated space apparently at the end of the disk. sda2 shows as 134MB. What were you planning to do with it? Do you know what that might be? It's certainly not big enough for an Ubuntu install and is even small for a boot partition on newer systems. Your sda1 shows as an efi partition so are you using GPT partitioning with windows 7? If you are then I believe you need to install Ubuntu using efi and GPT partitioning for both to work. Windows 7 default install was mbr not GPT, AFAIK so unless you installed using GPT?

The manual configuration on Ubuntu is called "Something Else", just click the radio button to the left of it.

If you have 8GB of RAM, you probably won't have any need for swap unless you use hibernation and maybe not even then. You could create a 2GB swap, should be enough.

The link below is to a tutorial that is about as detailed as it gets and is specific to Ubuntu 14.04. Has a lot of other really useful info. The installation instructions are about half way down the page. I did not see anything about efi in the tutorial but still useful to read.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-14-04-install-guide.html

[sks24]

Thanks Yancek,
"The manual configuration on Ubuntu is called "Something Else", just click the radio button to the left of it." Right. In my second screenshot, we're in "something else." I was thinking that Ubuntu would go into the .5GB of free space I opened up. I tried to do this, but I got pop-ups about mount points and other things I didn't understand. I will look at the tutorial presently.

[sks24]

Looks good. I will give the installation another go soon. Thanks again, S.

[oldfred]

Just for reference the sda2 is probably the system reserved partition. This is required by Windows and must be just before the first Windows system partition.
Just as grub used the space after the MBR in BIOS/MBR configuration for more boot code, Windows used the space after the MBR for a variety of uses. That space after the protective MBR in gpt partitioned drives does not exist. If installing Ubuntu in BIOS mode it requires the bios_grub partition which is used like the space after the MBR and Windows has its system reserved which is like the space after the MBR. Its a lot better as then grub & Windows now do not conflict.

Most standard Windows 7 installs are in BIOS mode, but you can install Windows 7 in UEFI boot mode, if hardware supports UEFI.
Since Windows is UEFI you do want to make sure you install Ubuntu in UEFI boot mode. And how you boot installer either UEFI or BIOS is how it installs.

Shows install with screen shots for both BIOS(purple) & UEFI(grub menu), so you know which you are using.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

(https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI) Order on drive is important: msftres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reserved_Partition


(https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI)

[sks24]

Thanks Old Fred,

I think I've been booting into UEFI. On this machine tapping the escape key gets you to a menu where you can choose to load the boot menu. There were two options to boot from the optical drive (where I had the install disk), but only the UEFI option would boot the disk. Same thing with the unetbootin flash drive I made. Anyway, I think you guys have given me enough to get going here. Thanks again, S.

[sks24]

OK so I spent some time going over the links and so forth, and—well, let me verify my steps so far. The CD booted in EFI mode. I'm sure about that. As you can see in the attached pics, I created a primary partition in the free space. Am I on the right track? What should I do next? Thanks in advance, scott255237255239

That third pic, the one which shows 514545 of free unformatted space, should be the first in the sequence.

[sks24]

I'm installing it now with no swap space. My assumption is that 8 gb of ram obviates the need for swap.

[sks24]

It looks fine. Thanks for all your help.

[oldfred]

Looks fine, glad it worked.

In general I prefer smaller system partitions and larger data or /home partitions. If dual booting with Windows a separate NTFS partition makes it less likely that you may damage Windows system partition. The Linux NTFS driver exposes all the hidden files & folders that Windows hides and accidents happen. Better to set Windows system partition as read only and use NTFS data partition as read/write.