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TriforceOfKirby
April 7th, 2015, 04:10 PM
I recently built a new PC and I would like to triple boot it with Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.10, and SteamOS.
What would be the best order to install these in to avoid problems?
Also what would you guys recommend for a partitioning scheme?

I have a 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD; I plan on using the HDD for general storage and the SSD for the operating systems and programs.
Could I perhaps mount my C:/Users/USERNAME directory in Windows and my /home/USERNAME directory in Linux to the same partition on the HDD?

oldfred
April 7th, 2015, 04:23 PM
Your Windows files have to be in a NTFS partition. And Linux system partitions like /home have to be Linux formats with owership & permissions that Windows does not support.
But you can create a shared data partition. That can be NTFS and used by all systems.
I had both shared NTFS when still using XP, and a shared Linux partition. I still have shared Linux partition as I install several versions of Ubuntu.

What model motherboard & what video card.
If new PC are you planning on UEFI with gpt partitioning. You should use gpt for both drives then.
GPT Advantages (older but still valid) see post#2 by srs5694:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1457901
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GUID_Partition_Table#Advantages_of_GPT
UEFI Advantages
http://askubuntu.com/questions/446968/legacy-vs-uefi-help

http://askubuntu.com/questions/461394/how-to-partition-ssdhdd

I would install Windows first as it has specific partition requirements. Then use Windows to shrink its NTFS partition and reboot immediately to let it run chkdsk and repair to its new size.

I like to have an efi partition on every drive, so I can have test systems or other installs on hard drive also.


fred@trusy-ar:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 128GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat32 efi boot
2 525MB 527MB 2097kB bios_grub
3 527MB 26.7GB 26.2GB ext4 trusty
5 121GB 126GB 5163MB ext4 iso_ssd
4 126GB 128GB 2000MB linux-swap(v1)


Model: ATA WDC WD10EZEX-00B (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 525MB 524MB fat32 EFI System Partition boot
2 525MB 527MB 2097kB bios_grub
3 527MB 26.7GB 26.2GB ext4 vivid
4 26.7GB 446GB 419GB ext4 data
5 446GB 476GB 29.9GB ext4 backup
7 713GB 993GB 280GB ext4 homerun
6 993GB 1000GB 7337MB ext4 iso_hdd


I have separate partitions on each drive for ISO, as I directly boot ISO to install. I also have backup partitions to copy data, but those are not real backups in the sense that data gets overwritten not archived. So if I change something it is lost, on my archives on other devices have the unchanged verisons.

TriforceOfKirby
April 7th, 2015, 08:56 PM
Your Windows files have to be in a NTFS partition. And Linux system partitions like /home have to be Linux formats with owership & permissions that Windows does not support.
But you can create a shared data partition. That can be NTFS and used by all systems.
I had both shared NTFS when still using XP, and a shared Linux partition. I still have shared Linux partition as I install several versions of Ubuntu.

Ok, so I'll partition my HDD into separate NTFS and Ext4 partitions then.

What model motherboard & what video card.

Asus Rampage V Extreme x99 motherboard and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 graphics card.


If new PC are you planning on UEFI with gpt partitioning. You should use gpt for both drives then.
GPT Advantages (older but still valid) see post#2 by srs5694:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1457901
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GUID_Partition_Table#Advantages_of_GPT
UEFI Advantages
http://askubuntu.com/questions/446968/legacy-vs-uefi-help

http://askubuntu.com/questions/461394/how-to-partition-ssdhdd

Yep, I plan to use gpt on both drives.


I would install Windows first as it has specific partition requirements. Then use Windows to shrink its NTFS partition and reboot immediately to let it run chkdsk and repair to its new size.

Ok, so should I install SteamOS next and Ubuntu last then?


I have separate partitions on each drive for ISO, as I directly boot ISO to install. I also have backup partitions to copy data, but those are not real backups in the sense that data gets overwritten not archived. So if I change something it is lost, on my archives on other devices have the unchanged verisons.

So can I install all 3 operating systems this way by putting each of them in their own partition? SteamOS is distributed as a zip, so would I have to change this to an iso to do this? Otherwise I have 2 4GB USB drives I can install from.

oldfred
April 7th, 2015, 09:54 PM
Do not know about Steam.

But Asus is fun to get working. I have an Asus-AR and I had to change many UEFI settings to get it to work. The only way to get flash drive to boot in UEFI mode was UEFI only. Even UEFI first did not work.

And the nVidia may be an issue. With older system I always had to use nomodeset on grub2's Linux line until I installed the proprietary drivers. But with new system and older nVidia it just worked with open source driver.
But your Maxwell based may need newer kernel, support software & nVidia driver.
The GTX 970/980 Maxwell GPUs Light Up With Nouveau On Linux 3.19 (3.19 is standard in 15.04)
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTg4NTg
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970/980: Windows vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance 2015 note versions ppas used to update
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_maxwell900_winlin&num=1
Install with Asrock Z97 & nVidia 970
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2257406
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2259210

TriforceOfKirby
April 7th, 2015, 10:53 PM
Well hopefully I can get it working; do you know if anyone has had issues with x99 boards and linux? I suppose it would be best to use proprietary drivers rather than open source drivers.

oldfred
April 7th, 2015, 10:58 PM
Do not know about x99, not sure we have even seen any Linux installs.
Keep track of what you do to install, so you can report.

TriforceOfKirby
April 8th, 2015, 03:25 PM
So I was wondering, would it be worth it to install both Ubuntu and SteamOS? Or would I just be better off using just SteamOS? I was planning on using SteamOS just for gaming and using Ubuntu as a primary OS, and Windows for applications that don't support Linux(yet). Although, it seems SteamOS could be used for other things, as it's based on Debian(Ubuntu is based off Debian as well). I've personally never used Debian, but will it feel similar to Ubuntu?

Vladlenin5000
April 8th, 2015, 05:54 PM
No, it won't fell similar to Ubuntu. It's a game oriented distro, for starters, so although it's Debian based and has a full desktop underneath it has been designed with the Steam platform in focus.

There should be no significant difference in performance between SteamOS and Ubuntu+Steam.