Disk Partition Help

[Sahil582]

Hello all, I'm a newbie Kubuntu user. I'd been using Ubuntu for about a month. Then I saw Kubuntu and I found it so awesome that I decided to replace my current Windows 7 for it. So I installed Kubuntu and it is going good. But my dad bought Windows 8 Pro and he wants to install windows 8 on pc. But I installed Kubuntu on all 465 GB hd. Now my question is how to make partition for win 8? My friend made a partition thorough Partition Manager but it erased all of his current data. Now my question is how to make a usable partition for win8 without loosing any of my files. I currently have no partition at all, just a single boot drive of 460 Gb free.

[oshunluvr]

Download a copy of Gparted Live and boot to it. Shrink your Kubuntu partition by 100GB and then move it to the end of the drive. This will take some time (maybe hours) so have patience and don't do it during a thunderstorm. Make a backup of any data you can't afford to lose.

Alternate idea: Since Kubuntu needs only 10-12GB and only takes a few minutes to install, why not wipe the disk clean, partition it saving 40-50GB for Kubuntu and linux data, swap space, etc. and re-installing Kubuntu after Dad does his thing? Re-installing will take less time than shrinking and moving the data.

[Sahil582]

@ oshunluvr, thank you for reply. I think I will first install windows 8 and then install Kubuntu, if everything goes fine. What should I do for swap memory? How much space does it need or should I give to it?
Also, after a fresh installation of Kubuntu, my internet speed has halved of its normal. It was usually 60KB/sex but not it is only about 27 KB/sec. Any idea?

[james147]

What should I do for swap memory? How much space does it need or should I give to it?

Depends on how much ram you have/ how much disk space you are willing to give up to it and what you use your computer for. Typically though you do not need more then 1-2GB of swap.

[Sahil582]

Thank you guys for help. I have another question. Is there anything like C drive of windows where all our programs are stored? I have installed a lot of softwares from muon but now I don't wanna loose them during whole process. Any idea how to backup those?

[Sahil582]

Sorry double post. I have a question regarding kubuntu. If I directly copy files from drive, will they run on newly installed Kubuntu?

[james147]

Thank you guys for help. I have another question. Is there anything like C drive of windows where all our programs are stored? I have installed a lot of softwares from muon but now I don't wanna loose them during whole process. Any idea how to backup those?

C:// in windows refers to the physical disk, in Linux that is /dev/sdXY. But in Linux you don't access the drives directly, you instead mount them somewhere in the root filesystem and access them like normal directories.

That said, binaries are stored in one of these locations:
/bin
/sbin
/usr/bin
/usr/sbin

but application data is stored in other locations.

You do not normally backup application binaries or data separately from your system, ie you normally do a full system backup, or don't both backing up the binaries/data. If you want to restore applications you had installed onto a new system the recommended approach is to backup the list of applications you have installed and then reinstall them on the new system then restore any configurations you had for them. I think muon is capable of both giving you a list of installed programs as well as installing programs form said list. Though I generally prefer to install software when and as needed rather then restoring everything like this (as you then only reinstall the stuff you actually use).

[Guest]

I have a quick question about partitioning. I have an alienware ma14x R1 with a 500GBHD. I had made a 100GB partition to install windows 8 on and a 60GB partition for Kubuntu. The rest I have partitioned for data storage. When I open my disk manager in windows I see



I want to install Kubuntu on the unallocated space but I can't get the kubuntu installer to see that partition. I've tried creating a new simple volume from it and kubuntu doesn't recognize it either. Any ideas?

Thanks!

-Jack

Edit: Looks like the picture doesn't really load so I have an unnamed volume, A system reserved volume, the C drive and another volume for data. There's an unallocated partition.

[vinnywright]

I have a quick question about partitioning. I have an alienware ma14x R1 with a 500GBHD. I had made a 100GB partition to install windows 8 on and a 60GB partition for Kubuntu. The rest I have partitioned for data storage. When I open my disk manager in windows I see



I want to install Kubuntu on the unallocated space but I can't get the kubuntu installer to see that partition. I've tried creating a new simple volume from it and kubuntu doesn't recognize it either. Any ideas?

Thanks!

-Jack

you need to turn the unallocated space into a partition with a linux file system on it ,,,,,then the installer will "see" it ,, such as ext4 .
remember you can only have 4 primary partitions an a hard drive if you need more than 4 you should make all the unallocated space into an extended partition that you can then split up into as many logical partitions as you kneed .

hear is an example of my laptops 500Gib drive chopped into 7 partitions

vinny@vinny-HP-G62:~$ sudo parted -l
[sudo] password for vinny:
Model: ATA WDC WD5000BEVT-6 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 4195MB 4195MB primary linux-swap(v1)
2 4195MB 26.0GB 21.8GB primary ext4 boot
3 26.0GB 237GB 210GB primary ext4
4 237GB 500GB 264GB extended
5 237GB 268GB 31.6GB logical ext3
6 268GB 300GB 32.0GB logical ext4
7 300GB 500GB 200GB logical ext4

VINNY

[james147]

I want to install Kubuntu on the unallocated space but I can't get the kubuntu installer to see that partition. I've tried creating a new simple volume from it and kubuntu doesn't recognize it either. Any ideas?

What is the output from `sudo parted -l`?

[Sahil582]

Thank you all who helped. I installed it properly and worked fine.
Thank you for making such a nice OS.

[Guest]

I didn't get a chance to run "sudo parted -l" but in windows disk management I see 4 volumes that were created by windows by default.

Volume Layout Type File System Capacity
Simple Basic 39MB
C Simple Dynamic NTFS 101.32GB
D Simple Dynamic NTFS 309.13GB
System Reserved Simple Dynamic NTFS 350MB

I have windows 8 installed on the C volume and D volume currently holds data that is non-OS essential (music, videos, whatnot). I want to install kubuntu as a dual boot. How would I go about adjusting what I have here without resorting to reinstalling windows?

Thanks,
Jack

[james147]

I didn't get a chance to run "sudo parted -l" but in windows disk management I see 4 volumes that were created by windows by default.

Volume Layout Type File System Capacity
Simple Basic 39MB
C Simple Dynamic NTFS 101.32GB
D Simple Dynamic NTFS 309.13GB
System Reserved Simple Dynamic NTFS 350MB

I have windows 8 installed on the C volume and D volume currently holds data that is non-OS essential (music, videos, whatnot). I want to install kubuntu as a dual boot. How would I go about adjusting what I have here without resorting to reinstalling windows?

Thanks,
Jack

Shrink D drive (or C drive, which ever has more free space you want to reuse, kubuntu only really needs about 20GB at most + space for data files) and install kubuntu into that free space