Step by step learning to format everything and re-install from scratch

Hi

As a complete beginner I realize that I cannot understand everything well without trying to do everything myself from the beginning.

My project is first to help myself to learn and then to help some other people like me, just because I dare not doing a lot of things thnking they will "damage" my system.

So, I will format everything and start from scratch, with all your helps to avoid me to do something wrong.


I just bought a new laptop with Ubuntu already installed from factory , and I want to learn to use Linux and Ubuntu on it...
but I dare not doing things...

MY PROJECT :

Now I decide to format everything and reinstall Ubuntu and other systems :

My laptop is :
ASUS 1225C-GRY004U -- 11.6" LED screen
initially with Ubuntu 12.04 installed
CPU :Intel Atom N2600 / 1.6 GHz
HDD : 500 Go
Mem : 2 Go DDR3 Sdram
Graphic Proc : Intel GMA 3600


---------------------------------
1) Install four systems
windows 7 + Ubuntu 12.04 + Debian + other system

2) configuring Grub2 for a quad boot, changing wallpaper Grub2 and color fonts

3) learn to mount, install everything from the beginning

4) configuring and customizing Ubuntu
----------------------------------

For the first step
I plan to make partitions of my 500 Go HDD

win 7 : one main partition NTFS + one partition for data ( 100 Go + 70 Go ? what do you think ?)

ubuntu : 3 partitions : Root , Home and Swap (which sizes ?)

Debian : 2 partitions : / and home , share the same swap partition

One other Linux distro (for testing purpose) : same as debian...

So please give me all your advices ... before I format and wipe everything from my new laptop

The first thing to do would be to use Clonezilla and make a whole disk backup of the factory install on an external HD.

ok I will install clonezilla and make a backup of the wholedisk

when I type
fdisk -l

I see 3 partitions

/dev/sda1 hidden partition W95 FAT32
/dev/sda2 Linux
/dev/sda3 swap


I have another little problem
all the texts in Terminal are not in English
because my native language is not English and my laptop is not configured in English

Is it possible to have those texts in English (to post here ) when my configured langiage is not English on my laptop ?

Keep in mind that you can only create 4 primary partitions on a hard drive so you would need to create a extended partition if you need more than 4 primary partitions.

what do you suggest ? and what size for each partition ?

win 7 :
100 Go primary : system
50 Go extended : data win 7

ubuntu :
100 Go primary : root
40 Go extended : home

debian :
70 Go primary : root
40 Go extended : home

other system linux for testing
50 Go primary : root
40 Go extended : home

2 Go : swap


any comment, suggestion or advice ?

Hi,

You may not need so much space for / (root) partition. It stores the system files and the various programs and libraries that you install. Less than half of what you've allocated currently would be ample.

I have partitioned my laptop as follows:

/ - 40 GB (includes /usr)
/opt - 20 GB
/home - 270 GB (or as big as you can spare)
/data - 280 GB (for storing my work)
swap - 6 GB

I would let the installers sort out the partitioning of the hard drive, me personally I would install Windows 7 first, then Debian and then Ubuntu.

My root partition is 25GB, and it's never gone over 20GB actually being used.

Linux is perfectly happy on an extended logical partition (including swap), so you really don't need to use so many primaries.