How to partion hard drive to install ubuntu?

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mikeyk

Member
I want to install ubuntu alongside windows 7 on the computer i'm ordering, with a 500 Gb hard drive, what size should the partions be? Any other advice on this topic would be appreciated as i'm new to linux...
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
umm i think when you install ubuntu it has these options during install, im pretty sure i had this when i installed alongside 7
 
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mikeyk

Member
Yeah I know, but it'd probably be less hassle to have the partions put on by the folks at pcspecialist, thanks anyway
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
you may as well do it yourself, as you probably wont be able to choose which partition etc, just choose when you install it, just dont make it as big as the windows one as that will have a lot more programs and is a bigger file itself
 
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mikeyk

Member
Ok thanks for the advice, i guess you probably know more about it than me :p I dont plan to install much stuff onto windows anyway probably just essential programs
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
mikeyk said:
Ok thanks for the advice, i guess you probably know more about it than me :p I dont plan to install much stuff onto windows anyway probably just essential programs
Click to expand...

hehe... TBC...

im guessing you dont know about the trouble trying to install program not on the software centre :0 *Tragedy, when you are on ubuntu and your dumb as £$%^ its tragedy*
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Hi. First, there is a major problem with Windows 7 and dual boot unless Ubuntu is on a second hard drive. The reason is that Windows 7 deliberately overwrites Grub (the dual boot program) every time Windows runs. There is a workaround, but it's a geeky bit of work. Easy workaround - install Ubuntu on a second internal hard drive using the entire drive and letting Ubuntu install use the default partitioning. Use this drive as the boot and Windows won't know what you are doing so it will leave well alone! You might want to put Windows on a small hard-drive - they are so cheap these days.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
For a beginner use as a good advice I would recommend installing VirtualBox software on your PC, and install Ubuntu as a guest machine inside a VirtualBox. You will not run into any problems with formatting drives, partitioning, GRUB, etc ... Give it a go, if you like it, then start partitioning drives and go with dual-boot or whatever.
There are many VirtualBox "How-to" around, and it is very easy to use.. so you should not have any problems.

I know you did ask how to partition the drives, so my answer is not exactly on-topic... but if you just want to test what "linux" is all about going virtual is not a bad idea... I've seen many people (beginners) going Ubuntu on main PC's with dual boot then re-partitioning drive, loosing data, getting into all sort of problems and then in the end they will go back to Windows anyway. (ps. such people are usually the ones saying linux is fail, etc ...).

Anyhow hope it helps.
 
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Wozza63

Biblical Poster
why dont you just run it off a memory stick to start with? just install the iso onto it and then reboot and it will load it from the memory stick, you can then choose whether to install it or not, works fine this way
 
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Dotson

New member
I did split my HDD in two partitions 600Gb for my Win7 and what's so left (out of my 750) for my Ubuntu. as it is really easier to mount NTFS partition in Linux than use (I believe so) those buggy/complicated tools for windows, anyway, it's unlikely to use large amount of HDD space in linux.
 
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barrydrake

Silver Level Poster
Tom DWC said:
Great advice above and don't think anyone's mentioned wubi yet, you can install ubuntu, have a play (and dual boot it) and once you've decided whether or not you want to keep it, uninstall it from add remove programs (simple as that!) and install it permanently or leave it removed. (Think it is a tad slower this way though).
Click to expand...

wubi as I understand it, is no longer supported in recent releases. The recommendation now is to run a virtual machine under Ubuntu. I gather that wubi no longer works - I think beginning with 11.04.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
As additional feature for VirtualBox you can have it enabled on your windows PC in 3 different modes:
- either full-screen linux (so you switch alt-tab between both OS)
- windowed mode (linux running inside a window - quite self explanatory :p)
- seamless mode (which is again a mix, you have both system on a fullscreen. Linux OS give you another taskbar on your windows desktop, and you just run both applications from linux and windows fullscreen - it's hard to explain. Just Google VirtualBox "seamless mode" and it will make sense.

With correct graphic drivers and virtualbox tools it's running quite fine. It will not perform as physical linux installation, but I doubt you're after playing games in linux - thought it's possible. For everyday use aka emails, music, internet, pictures, etc... you will not really see a massive diff.

You can even run Mac OS inside VirtualBox if you want - though it was quite buggy and slow for me :(
 
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