![]() ![]() How to: Disk partitioning for Linux and Windows dual- booting. In the comments on my recent posts about installing Linux on a netbook for a novice user (see my recommendations and my own results), someone mentioned that figuring out the disk partitioning was very difficult and particularly intimidating for new (or prospective) Linux users. I suppose that is true, and I have to admit that I haven't contributed much to solving this issue in my blog, because every time I write about a Linux installer, I just sort of wave my hands at that part and say "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain" because the partitioning on my systems is far too complicated to be used as an example. Every computer I own has 6 to 1. Linux distributions and occasionally Windows as well (although Windows is thankfully becoming less and less common on them). What I would like to do in this post is present a couple of simple examples of installing Linux for dual- booting on an existing Windows system. I will be using an old Lenovo T4. Windows 7, with MBR disk partitioning and legacy BIOS boot - I will not discuss GPT partitioning or EFI boot in this post. If you don't know what MBR, GPT or EFI mean, don't worry: it basically means the laptop disk I use will be very similar to most computers purchased with Windows 7 or older, but not like one with Windows 8 or Windows 1. In order to understand disk partitioning and make really good, informed decisions about this part of installing Linux, a lot of underlying information is required. Reinstall 98, 98 install, install windows 98, win98, 98, 98 home, 98 SE, win98 guides, 98 parallel install, fix 98, windows 98 guide, 98 system specs, required specs. ยท I have just had the same problem - i have a vertex3 ssd disk as my boot/os drive and a conventional wd disk for storing files etc. Iv'e had no problems until this. Quickly set up PXE booting to install XP or Windows 7/8 over Ethernet! If I try to present all of that first, though, a lot of readers are going to give up and move on to a more interesting article. Even worse for me, some readers are just going to throw up their hands and say "this Linux stuff is just too complicated", when in fact it really isn't. So once again, I am going to present things in a sort of backwards order - I'm going to show the installation dialog, and I'm going to run through the installation in the simplest possible way. Once that is done, I will spend some more time (a lot more time) explaining what really happened, and what the alternatives are. I recently posted screen- shot walk- throughs of several common installers, so I won't repeat all the steps which lead up to this point - if you want to see those details, please refer to Calamares and Ubiquity or Anaconda and Mint Install. Calamares Installer Partitioning. The screen shot shown here is the Partitions step of the Calamares installer. The layout shown here is one of the simplest situations, and probably also one of the most common. It shows that my T4. GB, which contains two partitions: Windows 7 Loader. Windows C: drive. This would be very typical on a new PC that is preloaded with Windows 7. The task here is to change the partitioning of this drive so that Linux can be installed. The options that Calamares offers are: Install Linux alongside the existing Windows installation: The installer will automatically make the necessary changes and ask you for approval. Replace a partition: This one is conceptually very easy, if you know that there is an existing partition that is not being used, you can just say "put Linux here". This could be the case, for example, if you have a new computer with a C: and a D: drive, and you know that D: hasn't been used for anything. Erase disk: This is the best option, of course. Get rid of the Windows rubbish that is cluttering the disk and start over from scratch. As with the first option, the installer will automatically allocate the new partitions. Manual Partitioning: This is the option for those who know what they are doing and how they want to allocate the disk space. If you choose this option the installer changes to a more detailed partition management screen, and you can do pretty much anything you want. For this first very simple example I am going to choose, 'Install Linux alongside the existing Windows installation'. Calamares then adds a second graphic bar showing the proposed new disk layout, and asks me to select a partition which will be reduced to make room for Linux installation. In this case there's not much choice - there is only one partition that is large enough to be used, so I select that one by clicking the button between the two bars. Calamares then splits that partition in the middle, and puts a bar there which I can drag in either direction, to give more or less space to Linux or Windows. When I'm happy with the sizes, I click Next. Believe it or not, that's all I have to do! . The Linux installer will reduce the size of the WIndows partition, and create what it needs to install Linux in the space that it recovers by doing that. I can then continue through the rest of the installation. When it is finished I will have Linux installed, and when I reboot it will present a multi- boot menu where I can choose Linux or Windows, with Linux as the default. Zowie, that was amazingly easy! To see exactly what happened to the disk, I have used my preferred Linux disk management utility, Gparted. Here you can see that what it did was the absolute simplest thing that it could - made one new partition, formatted with the Linux ext. Manjaro Linux there. I know a lot of you might be saying "wait a minute, it can't be that easy!", but it is. You need an absolute minimum of one partition to install Linux. I will explain more about this below, so please just bear with me for now. Let's take another look at that process with a different Linux installer. This time I will use Linux Mint 1. Beta). This installer is derived directly from the Ubuntu installer (ubiquity), so what you see below is very, very similar to what it would be like when installing Ubuntu. Again, I am going to skip over the steps leading up the the disk partitioning, and start with this window. It is similar to the window we saw the first time, although this time it doesn't give you a graphic of the disk partitioning. The choices that it offers are: Install Linux Mint alongside Windows 7: Pretty much the same as the last time. Erase disk and install Linux Mint: Still the best choice in my opinion. Something else: For experienced users who know what they are doing and what they want. Once again I am going to choose, 'Install Linux Mint alongside Windows 7' and then click Continue.The next screen shows me what Mint is going to do, and gives me the opportunity to fine- tune it.There are a number of subtle points about this window which are quite interesting.First, obviously, it shows what the relative size of the (resized) Windows partition and the (new) Linux partition(s) will be, and there is a handle between those two which I can drag to change the sizes, pretty much the same as the previous example.Nice, clear and easy. more. Second, if you look at the fine print inside each of those partitions, you can see that the installer has figured out that the Windows partition is an ntfs file system, and that 3. GB of space is actually used in it. Really? 3. 2GB used for not much more than a simple Windows 7 installation? Bletch.) That's useful to know, because if I want to reduce the amount of space left for Windows, now I have a good idea of how much it really needs. Third, you can see that the partition it is going to create for Linux will be formatted with the ext. That's a good general- purpose choice, especially if you are a novice Linux user. Finally, on the line below the partition graph, it tells you that the installer is not showing you one other smaller partition - that would be the 6. GB "Windows 7 Loader" partition. Fair enough, we don't have anything useful to do with that anyway. If you really want to see all of the gory details, you can click the link in that line of text to bring up the advanced partitioning tool. When I click Continue, the installer brings up this window to remind me that the changes I am about to make are irreversible. If it were my choice I would add a bit of text which said "Are you sure that you wouldn't rather just wipe the Windows partition", but that's just my personal prejudice showing through.. So, one more click on Continue and the installation starts. Whoops, no it doesn't, the installer puts up yet another confirmation window. Wow, they want to make sure you are really, really sure that you want to do this, aren't they? There are two new bits of information in this window that are interesting.
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