Suggestions for partition sizes

[Mathematicus]

hey, i am new at this stuff, please bear with me. i am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new laptop. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processor, 4 GB DDR RAM, and 320 GB HD. Of course, it comes with Windows Vista. I was going to shrink the Vista partition to 100 GB, leaving me ~220 GB to install Kubuntu on. So, now the question...according to the forums, i should create 3 partitions with kubuntu (root, home, and swap). what size should i make each of these? and should i use the 64-bit version or 32-bit? thanks a bunch

[Qqmike]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3093496.0

also:

Vista *** The definitive dual-booting guide: Linux, Vista and XP step-by-step
http://apcmag.com/dualboot

[Fintan]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

Well if you are going to dual boot why not create a 4th data partition and designate it as "my folders"? It makes good security sense and you can easily "share" data with your windows install.

Anway:
/ (root) this is where your kubuntu will live= 10-12 gig format as ext3
/swap = max 1.5 gig
/home (with data partition) = 5-10 gig depending format as ext3
/home (without data partition) as large as you want
/data as large as you want. Format as ntfs

As for 64/32bit. Well get both. If you laptop likes the 64 bit live version use it

Hope that points you in the right direction and welcome to the party

[Mathematicus]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

for the most part i think i am following (like i said, i am new, you can still smell the cellophane). as far as the "with data" and "without data" partitions, what is the difference? and what is with the /data partition? thanks again

[Fredh]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

Well to put it simply if you have a separate data partition you have two direct advantages.
First: your data is on a separate partition from your win OS so if for any reason your vista crashes your data is safe
You can easily point the "my files" (or whatever it is called, mine is in german) folder to the new data partition.

Second: you can easily "share" between linux and windows so you have a "central2 place to put your data.

So, if you have a separate /data partition then you can also have a smaller /home partition.

I hope this makes sense

[Mathematicus]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

ok, i think i get it, i can simply make a /data partition and call it "shared" or whatever. however, i would have to format as either FAT32 or NTFS

[Fredh]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

Format it as ntfs. If you use the vista partitioning app. leave enough empty space at the end of your
drive for linux.

Then get yourself the gparted live cd for partitioning the rest:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...roup_id=115843
here you will find a lot of usefull documentation on partitioning:
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

windows sucks at partitioning linux formats

Good luck and keep us posted

[Mathematicus]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

ok, one more question. i have been searching through the forums and have found almost every answer i want (you all are really helpful), but i cannot find this one answer. most everyone suggest using the GParted Live CD to do the partitioning, and i am cool with that. i was gonna partition as follows:

/ (root) - 10 gb
/home - 10 gb
/swap - 1.5-2 gb
/data - 150 gb (use it as a shared parition with Vista, format as NTFS)

i think this is a good setup (if not, please tell me otherwise). now, do i set this up as one large primary partition and then split it up into 4 logical partitions? what do i partition with GParted and what do i leave for the Ubuntu Installer? and is it easy to access the /data partition from Konqueror?

[Fintan]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

Linux can live on either logical or primary. So you can choose which path you want to take.

I would suggest using the gparted live cd for doing all your partitioning and then assign the partitions as needed in"manual partitioning" during installation.

Any partitions you assign during install will be booted automatically. Hardy should have no problem in reading/writing to and from ntfs.

Have a look at various posts here pertaining to that issue. The search function is a good place to start and google is always a friend for this stuff.

This could prove valuable as well:
http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/about78184.html

Have fun

[Mathematicus]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

is there an advantage either way? i was going use the Vista app to shrink it's partition, use GParted to make the remaining free space a primary partition, then split it into four separate logical partitions as stated above, and mount them with the ubuntu installer. i figured this would be the best way to go. however, if my /data partition is in a different primary partition than Vista, will i still be able to access from Vista? sorry if this is getting repetitive, i am just wanting to get everything exactly right...

[Fintan]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

Yes, use the vista app to shrink it and make the /data partition and as Fred suggested use gparted for the rest. /data does not have to be primary (actually it shouldn't be ) and if it is formated as ntfs vista will see it automatically.

Hope this helps

[Mathematicus]

Re: Suggestions for partition sizes

yeah, i think i can go from there, so one last time before i do this tomorrow this is what my hard drive should look like:

dev/sda01 NTFS Vista 100 gb
dev/sda05 NTFS /data 150 gb
dev/sda06 ext3 / 10 gb
dev/sda07 ext3 /home 10 gb
dev/sda08 ext3 /swap 2 gb

any tweeks or suggestions?