Windows + Kubuntu -- How should I partition?

[Megiddo]

I'm interested in running Kubuntu and Linux in dual boot, and I was wondering how I should partition my hard drives?

First thing first, RAID:

I have two 250 GB SATA drives. I was running them in a RAID 0 before, but apparently Kubuntu doesn't like hardware raids much (don't want to do a manual install) and I rather like being able to access my hard drives on other computers in case of an emergency.

I've heard that you really don't get that big of a performance boost from RAID anyways though, should I just forget about it?

Now for partitioning:

Most of the space on my drives are being taken up with media (music and movies) and games. Would it be best to just dedicate one 250 GB to these? If I were to do that, what filesystem would be best? Fat32, ext2/3 with a windows ext2 driver, or NTFS? Or is it a bad idea to share games (saves too) across them? I plan on sticking with linux as much as possible, only going to windows when it's unavoidable.

I've heard that you should dedicated a partition to /mount (GRUB). Is this really necessary? Should I dedicated a partition to any others (like /home)?

Thanks so much for your help everyone. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot more about linux!

[dibl]

Re: Windows + Kubuntu -- How should I partition?

In sequence ....

Partitioning for dual boot: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partitioning

RAID: I dunno -- your SATA drives are pretty fast, and setting up software RAID arrays looks kinda challenging, according to the posts I have read on the topic. If you're not setting up a production server, I doubt it's worth the bother. I don't find any reports of dramatic "solutions" for workstation users, achieved from RAID configurations.

Partition scheme for your two drives -- one recommendation:

Drive #1

Windows Partition = 10GB for the OS + whatever you need for Win data
/ = 10GB
/{swap} = 1.5GB
/home = all the rest of it

Drive #2
/Data = all of it


Filesystem -- see the psychocats material above. I'm not enthusiastic about "sharing" live data between Win and Linux. I have some critical data that I back up within both systems, for security. I'd rather do my Windows work in a VMWare Player virtual machine under Linux, and run a Samba network on the same platform to let them both "co-exist", than have to boot back and forth from one to the other. If you do it that way, you can forget about NTFS. Otherwise, you can install ntfs-3g and configure Kubuntu to read and write to the NTFS partition where Windows lives. See this: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3084679.0

For Linux, I like reiserfs, but ext3 is fine too.

You do NOT require a dedicated partition for Grub. Just the three I mentioned above for Linux, plus your Windows partition.

HTH

[askrieger]

Re: Windows + Kubuntu -- How should I partition?

If you really want to save your RAID configuration look here, but I suspect you're going to be disappointed. In which case, you might as well go the route recommended by Dibl.

The only difference that I would suggest is that I would NOT separate my /home/ and / trees into two separate partitions. If you have limited experience with Linux, you don't know whether you will wind up storing a lot of "stuff" under /home or whether you will wind up being trapped by an ever-expanding /var/ tree that winds up killing your system because you skimped on the size of the / partition. I think this is especially true in your case where an enormous amount of "stuff" is going to be stored on your other drive. Another reference I would recommend that you look at before starting is http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/