Help me understand partitions

[szkafen]

I have a computer with fours disks, as follows:

One 500 GB SSD. Here, I will install Windows 10. We can forget about this one, and I will be needing this w10 instance for some very occasional stuff.
One 1 TB SSD
Two 1 TB HDD

I want to install Kubuntu 24.04 (I will be updating afterwards, but I already had the ISO in a pen).

I have no idea on how to actually install the system properly. I know I could just tell the installer to do it automatically, but since I have so much space I'd be interested in doing it manually and while doing so, learning about partitions and how the Linux ones work.

It seems that having a /home partition separated could be interesting if I plan to change my distro in the futur. Since all personal or non-system files are hosted here, it seems that having a lot of space looks like be a good idea. Would allocating a whole 1 TB HDD be a good idea? Should I divide it somehow?

Also, if I read correctly, there seems to be some partition for booting the system. Would it be recommended to install this one in the SDD?

What about all the other /somethings that I'm forgetting? And how much space should o allocate for each partition? I've also been told it would be a good idea to have BTRFS rather than ext4, because it can create recovery points.

About SWAP. If I understand correctly, it works as a temporary replacement for RAM in case the memory gets full... But I do have 32 GB RAM, and I don't plan on having a very intensive use, so perhaps in my case it's not worth it.

In the installer program, I've noticed I can only pick one disk of the many I have. What should be done here?

I think I'm asking for a guide on, considering my disks, what partitions to make, how big, and what steps to make them. It's a lot, and I'm sorry for asking this of you, but I'm trying to learn and understand (and finally migrating!). So what should the layout, the tables... Look like?

[skyfishgoo]

first of all get the latest .iso and remake the USB.. there have been updates to the install .iso that you will want to have at the start so you don't end up back here asking about a black screen and such.

having a separate /home dir is not just for distro hopping (which i do not recommend) but it is also good for reinstalling and restoring from back up (the real reason to do it)... having on a sep partition makes it easy to copy and move to another disk.

the installer will have a step where you can choose how you want to install... choose the manual or other option at the bottom to get a top level view of all your disks... this is the place from where you will create the partitions and link them up with the various parts of the linus OS.

you should target the 1T SSD for your linux install assuming it's blank and unformatted, i would aim for a layout something like this for install onto a GPT disk

size format name mount
1GB fat32 EFI /boot/efi
200GB ext4 System /
200GB ext4 Data /home
38GB swap /swap

swap is sized for making use of suspend / resume ... if you never plan to make use of this feature, then you can make it 6GB or leave it out altogether, but if find it to be a valuable feature and time saver

there is a wrinkle here if you have legacy MBR partition tables on any of these disks and it might be wort considering migrating them to GPT at this time...

there are windows tools you can use for this, the one i use is easeus partition manager which claims it can make the conversion without loss of data (tho i would always make a back up anyway).

[oshunluvr]

Some general answers rather than specific instructions:

1. Install Windows first.
2. The Kubuntu installer will use the Window EFI partition.
3. GRUB (the Kubuntu boot system) will allow you to boot to Windows,
4. Use a swap file rather than a swap partition. Performance is the same and you have more flexibility after installation.
5. Some swap is a good idea, but unless you hibernate/suspend it doesn't have to be a large amount. If you hibernate, you'll need an amount equal to your RAM.
6. If you select BTRFS instead of EXT4 for your Kubuntu install you do not need a separate home partition.
7. You do not have to have any partitions outside of EFI and the system if using BTRFS so just let the installer have the entire SSD for Kubuntu. With this much drive space, there's no real need to get "fancy" with partitioning.
8. Use the HDD for backups and/or media storage like large videos, etc.

BTRFS is a game changer with regards to partitioning, snapshots (aka recovery points), and backups. Read a bit about using subvolumes with BTRFS and you'll start to get a clue why you don;t need partitions. You can "divide" or segregate drive space without the boundaries partitioning requires.

[kubicle]

Yo don't need any swap to suspend (suspend-to-ram), you do need swap to hibernate (suspend-to-disk)