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**kernelbasher** · Feb 11, 2015, 02:34 PM

The partitions for a 15.04 install will still be
/
/home (if you plan to have a separate one, *buntu distros default to just /)
But it's good practice to have your /home separate

Typically you would have
/ of about 30GB
/home would be as big as you like 500GB or more if you like

You current 14.04 install is surely using Grub

You mention 20GB swap. That sounds excessive.

If you think you might get confused by all the partitions you can add labels to them

4 Primary partitions is the limit on MBR table HDD's
Using extended space to have logical partitions overcomes that restriction

**oshunluvr** · Feb 11, 2015, 02:51 PM

Other than LABELing a partition, the so-called "name" you're referring to is actually the mount point. So the new 15.04 install will mount itself as "/" and won't mount 14.04 at all unless you make it so. This also applies to /home or any other mounted partitions. The word "name" doesn't really apply at all. They aren't names, they're mount points. You can create just about any folder name you want to mount a partition.

Partitions have a "device name" which is set by the OS in conjunction with the PC itself. Generally speaking, the first drive gets "a", second "b", and so on. Each partition on each drive then gets a number in order. Depending on your formatting type: GPT partitioning is numbered in order, MBR partitioning is numbered by Primary partitions first (1-4) then Logical partitions (5-15). One of the Primary partitions can be an Extended partition - which is required to hold the Logical partitions.

So the first drive (if MBR formatted), first primary (or extended) partition has the device name:

/dev/sda1

dev = device
sd = scsi type device (interface type, also used for sata)
a = first drive
1 = first partition

I hope this makes the device naming a bit clearer. So when you (or the system) mounts a partition (technically, a partition holds a filesystem, and the filesystem is mounted), that partition takes the "name" of the mount point. Whatever partition you install to will become "/" when you boot to it, and which physical partition is "named" "/" will be different if you boot to a different install. A good way to look at your current partition setup is to open a terminal and type this:

sudo blkid -c /dev/null -o list

This will give you a neat list of all your partitions, the types of filesystems on them, the labels (if you gave them one when you created the filesystem), the mount point (if mounted), and the UUID (universally unique identifier).

As far as partitioning: You need an extended partition IF you're using MBR formatting AND you want more than 4 partitions. It usually a good idea with a drive this size to start out with an extended partition in case you want more partitions later on.

To your upcoming operation:

When you do the install of 15.05 on the new drive, the installer will detect and use the swap partition already present on the other drive. If you don't want 15.04 using that swap, you have to select Manual partitioning at install time and create a new swap partition on the new drive. No reason to do this unless you want the swap on the new drive and you wish to remove it from the other.

Obviously, how you divide up all that space is up to you. By now I'm sure you know that any Kubuntu install will rarely use more than 10-12GB and usually closer to 8.

**jlittle** · Feb 11, 2015, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

When you do the install of 15.05 on the new drive, the installer will detect and use the swap partition already present on the other drive. If you don't want 15.04 using that swap, you have to select Manual partitioning at install time and create a new swap partition on the new drive. No reason to do this unless you want the swap on the new drive and you wish to remove it from the other.

There is a possible reason, the swap partition is used for hibernation, also called "suspend to disk". If you wanted to be able to hibernate both installs at the same time, separate swaps would be needed, and if you wanted to "wake up" an install having removed a disc, its swap can't be on the disc you've removed.

If your system boots and starts KDE quickly, you may not want to bother with hibernation. My 2006 desktop restarts from power off much more quickly from hibernation than a full restart. I had to tweak something to enable hibernation, and window decorations are glitchy.

**Shabakthanai** · Feb 11, 2015, 09:00 PM

So if I create a 3rd bootable partition, I just set the mount point for the boot of Kubuntu 15.04 to "/" . But since that was the mount point for Kubuntu 14.04, will Kubuntu 14.04 still be bootable? Does its mount point change or does it remain "/" also when I open Kubuntu 14.04. I want to make sure I am able to boot to Kubuntu 14.04. I am going to use Kubuntu 15.04 to use and learn from, while it is being stabilized, but it is important that I still be able to open Kubuntu 14.04 which is the OS I use most often.

Additionaly, I still want to be able to open Windows 7, which I use as an emergency backup, as well as, access to Netflix. I need the movie access and still have not been able to get Netflix working in Kubuntu 14.04. Unfortunately, my personal human memory does not allow me to retain certain terminology. I struggle by using words and phrases that are close in meaning like, naming vs. mount point.

Also, I realize most multiple OS users use virtual machines to accomplish what I am trying to do, but I have tried several times over the years and have never been able to get Virtual Box to work in my computer, even with the kind help and patience from you experts. I have also tried and failed in the multiple boot process, because I failed to properly mount the boot partition, and in the process lost previously installed OS access, which then required starting over and installing Win 7 and Kub 14.04 all over .

Unless I use computer terminology daily or make a proper installation many times in a row to establish longer term memory I forget to remember the how, after a while,

I am old enough to want to taste as much of the technological capabilities as are made during my lifetime, thus my desire to have Kubuntu 15.04 installed. The only reason I keep Windows 7 on board is because I do not use Windows 7 often enough to break it, and it can remain as backup when I have problems that take time to fix with Kubuntu. That is what is taking place right now with Netflix.

I am sure it is my inability to remember lesser used terms when attempting to ask the right questions to fix Netflix, or by not remembering those terms be unable to easily fix Netflix using the Googled instructions, because it sometimes takes a lot of time before I get it right. Interestingly enough having to use Windows 7 for any reason sure makes my appreciation of Kubuntu greater when finally I get the newly generated problems repaired. Fear of using the wrong terminology is the reason my posts get larger than probably needed. Oh! to be smart like you guys.

Originally posted by kernelbasher View Post

The partitions for a 15.04 install will still be
/
/home (if you plan to have a separate one, *buntu distros default to just /)
But it's good practice to have your /home separate

Typically you would have
/ of about 30GB
/home would be as big as you like 500GB or more if you like

You current 14.04 install is surely using Grub

You mention 20GB swap. That sounds excessive.

If you think you might get confused by all the partitions you can add labels to them

4 Primary partitions is the limit on MBR table HDD's
Using extended space to have logical partitions overcomes that restriction

**Shabakthanai** · Feb 12, 2015, 02:03 AM

Other than LABELing a partition, the so-called "name" you're referring to is actually the mount point. So the new 15.04 install will mount itself as "/" and won't mount 14.04 at all unless you make it so. This also applies to /home or any other mounted partitions. The word "name" doesn't really apply at all. They aren't names, they're mount points. You can create just about any folder name you want to mount a partition.

During my remaining time, I don't expect following other Linux Distributions than Kubuntu, so I will probably prefer having one '/home' partition (which I will currently use for both 14.04 and 15.04) for all the distributions as they continue, but only if that won't cause future problems in the stored data.

Partitions have a "device name" which is set by the OS in conjunction with the PC itself. Generally speaking, the first drive gets "a", second "b", and so on. Each partition on each drive then gets a number in order. Depending on your formatting type: GPT partitioning is numbered in order, MBR partitioning is numbered by Primary partitions first (1-4) then Logical partitions (5-15). One of the Primary partitions can be an Extended partition - which is required to hold the Logical partitions.

So the first drive (if MBR formatted), first primary (or extended) partition has the device name:

/dev/sda1

dev = device
sd = scsi type device (interface type, also used for sata)
a = first drive
1 = first partition

I hope this makes the device naming a bit clearer. So when you (or the system) mounts a partition (technically, a partition holds a filesystem, and the filesystem is mounted), that partition takes the "name" of the mount point. Whatever partition you install to will become "/" when you boot to it, and which physical partition is "named" "/" will be different if you boot to a different install. A good way to look at your current partition setup is to open a terminal and type this:

If I understand what you are saying, I can mount using "/" when I install the third OS and when I restart, if I choose to change from Kubuntu 15.04 and open Kubuntu 14.04, Kubuntu 14.04 will still boot and open. Is that correct?

I currently haven't come across GPT partitioning; is there an advantage to that over MBR? I will do a little research while waiting for a response.

sudo blkid -c /dev/null -o list

I looked at mine. When I installed my Operating Systems, I thought they were being installed as I instructed. Since everything worked well, I did not check to confirm that what I wanted was actually installed. I don't know if you could read and understand what has happened, but I could upload my copy of this list. My Kubuntu 14.04 was instructed to be installed on a 128GB SSD. How it ended up on the TB HDD, I do not know, but I suspect I made some kind of error filling in information and the computer made my data work. It is the only thing that makes sense to me.

This will give you a neat list of all your partitions, the types of filesystems on them, the labels (if you gave them one when you created the filesystem), the mount point (if mounted), and the UUID (universally unique identifier).

Only one of my partitions is not mounted, which has a ext4 file system; it is probably one of the empty disks. The others that are not mounted are with NTFS identification, so I suspect those are the Windows 7 partitions.

As far as partitioning: You need an extended partition IF you're using MBR formatting AND you want more than 4 partitions. It usually a good idea with a drive this size to start out with an extended partition in case you want more partitions later on.

As far as having an extended partition, I am not sure I created one. I may have only needed primaries at the last point of installation. If I did not create an extended partition, can I do so now without screwing things up? And is the number of 4 partitions as a maximum of primaries for my entire group of drives or is it per hard drive? I haven't used labels, since I screwed things up by using labels a few years ago. I like the idea, because it would be much easier to know what was in drives when opening Dolphin, and probably many other times I am not aware.

To your upcoming operation:

When you do the install of 15.05 on the new drive, the installer will detect and use the swap partition already present on the other drive. If you don't want 15.04 using that swap, you have to select Manual partitioning at install time and create a new swap partition on the new drive. No reason to do this unless you want the swap on the new drive and you wish to remove it from the other.

Thanks, that answered a question I have wanted to know for a long time. I now will only retain the Kubuntu 14.04 Linux Swap. I have 16GB of very fast memory, so I set my Swap at 20 GB's to cover that amount.

Obviously, how you divide up all that space is up to you. By now I'm sure you know that any Kubuntu install will rarely use more than 10-12GB and usually closer to 8.

I still don't know where applications are stored, so no, I did not realize that and have kept my boot partition at 20GB. If I end up having to start from scratch, I will remember to cut my boot partition from 20 to 15, thanks.

I hate to admit it, but I usually lose my addressbook and emails and my bookmarks, when I change OS's. Not knowing where the files are stored and being so stupid about other things, like understanding a perfectly good explaination when using google search. I usually save my /home drive, where I suppose the data is kept, but I still don't know how to locate the files from /home then put them in the newly installed /home.

When I installed my OS's this last time, I used manual, as I always do; I then thought I installed Kubuntu 14.04 in my 128GB SSD drive. It actually was installed in a TB HDD. My /home was also installed in the same HDD and was supposed to be the only folder ?? directory in another TB HDD. Windows 7 apparently was installed where intended in a 256GB SSD, and I suspect the only unmounted ext4 partition is what should have been /home.

Like I may have mentioned, I believe I made mistakes in filling in the install instructions and the computer made things work by installing OS's where they would work; it is the only thing that makes sense to me.

If you noticed a series of posts by me trying to play musical chairs with my partitions, those were a list of possible ways I might move data to end up with what I originally wanted. It would be nice. There were many things I thought would be best using that configuration. I also thought I would better protect myself from loss of data by making loss of an Operating System or the physical drive to failure less catastrophic. I am at a point now where I have lost all the data I counted as irreplaceable excepting a few recently added photographs of the grandchildren.

My gratitude to you continues dear friend; I love this stuff so much. It would have been nice if I had the intellect to warrant my effort and my use of your and the forums time.

**oshunluvr** · Feb 12, 2015, 07:08 AM

Originally posted by jlittle View Post

There is a possible reason, the swap partition is used for hibernation, also called "suspend to disk". If you wanted to be able to hibernate both installs at the same time, separate swaps would be needed, and if you wanted to "wake up" an install having removed a disc, its swap can't be on the disc you've removed.

If your system boots and starts KDE quickly, you may not want to bother with hibernation. My 2006 desktop restarts from power off much more quickly from hibernation than a full restart. I had to tweak something to enable hibernation, and window decorations are glitchy.

So you would suspend to disk and then reboot into another OS? Is that even possible? I thought about that but I couldn't imagine suspending then rebooting as a necessity or possibility. Then again, I don't use suspend because even my 8 year old desktop boots in 13-15 seconds or so. I suppose that's what my laptop does when I close the lid - but since it un-suspends when you open the lid, it's not possible to boot into another install without rebooting from the OS.

**Qqmike** · Feb 12, 2015, 07:18 AM

Hi Shabakthanal. Looks like you are quoting selections from another post, oshunluvr's. Did you lose the quotes? Just in case, sorry if you know this:
To quote something, copy the text you wish to quote, then paste it between two quote codes, like this:
Type the beginning quote code as follows: Type the left square bracket [, then the word quote, then the right square bracket ]. (Type no spaces.)
Then press Enter.
Paste the text you had copied.
Press Enter.
Finally, type the ending quote code as follows: Type the left square bracket [, then a forward slash /, then type the word quote, and then type the right square bracket ]. (Type no spaces.)

(Actually, anything you type between the start and ending quote codes will appear in the "quote box" that the reader sees, so knowing this, you can experiment with spaces and Enter (returns).)

**oshunluvr** · Feb 12, 2015, 07:42 AM

Shabakthanai; You're over-thinking this a little bit. For example; You don't create any mountpoint for the new install, the installer does that. You need only point it to the partition you want it installed on, it does the rest. Unless you tell the installer to over-write your 14.04 install, nothing there will be touched and it won't even be mounted when you boot into the 15.04 install. The only possible partition that the installer will use automatically is the current swap partition. Mountpoints - including "/" - are just directories that filesystems are connected to, to allow access by the operating system. Any filesystem (partition) can be mounted to any directory. In the unlikely event you choose to mount to a directory being used for another purpose, you can cause problems. That's why there is a directory called "/mnt". It's reserved for you to create directories in and mount filesystem to safely so you can access them. You should not be mucking about with or worrying about the "/" mountpoint. The OS handles that at install just fine.

Might I suggest we take this one step at a time? This will allow you to focus on each part of what we're doing and learn a little bit along the way. I suggest we come up with a plan to protect your data, allow you to install new distros safely, and boot to any or all your drives in case one fails.

First step: You should have installed the new drive into the computer so if you haven't - do that. Then boot to your 14.04 install, open up konsole and enter this command:

sudo lsblk

Cut and paste the results here. This will list all your drives, partitions, mount points that are available, and their sizes. Then we can sort them out and take notes. I usually use paper to lay out my partitioning plan so I don't mess things up.

Please answer the question about hibernation/suspend: Is this something you do or need to do? I suspect not, but if you do lets prepare for it. Once I see the list of your partitions, we'll discuss partitioning the new drive.

**oshunluvr** · Feb 12, 2015, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Qqmike View Post

Hi Shabakthanal. Looks like you are quoting selections from another post, oshunluvr's. Did you lose the quotes? Just in case, sorry if you know this:
To quote something, copy the text you wish to quote, then paste it between two quote codes, like this:
Type the beginning quote code as follows: Type the left square bracket [, then the word quote, then the right square bracket ]. (Type no spaces.)
Then press Enter.
Paste the text you had copied.
Press Enter.
Finally, type the ending quote code as follows: Type the left square bracket [, then a forward slash /, then type the word quote, and then type the right square bracket ]. (Type no spaces.)

(Actually, anything you type between the start and ending quote codes will appear in the "quote box" that the reader sees, so knowing this, you can experiment with spaces and Enter (returns).)

Easiest way is to highlight the text you want and click here (follow the red arrow)

Attached Files

**Qqmike** · Feb 12, 2015, 08:13 AM

Easiest way is to highlight the text you want and click here (follow the red arrow).

Ah, yes, that also works ;-) Certainly, it is faster! I see a code tag, too (vs typing every [code]...etc.).

**SecretCode** · Feb 14, 2015, 04:38 PM

Can we make this thread the one where we discuss how you set up your drives and operating systems and avoid losing data? It seems like a good idea to keep related questions in one place!

There are one or two things I'm not sure about.

What do you mean by "TB HDD"? Do you mean they are 1 terabyte in size?
And when you say "3GBs" or "6GB" what are you referring to? That can't be the size of the drive.
Is your computer UEFI-capable or BIOS? If you don't know, post the make and model of the computer.
Are you currently running with a MBR partition table or a GPT partition table? If you don't know ... I will assume MBR because I don't understand GPT yet!
Can you currently boot up Kubuntu 14.04 and Windows 7?

Now, as to what you should do.

To avoid losing data:

Copy (don't move, don't erase anything) your data to a removable drive - this can either be an external USB drive or an internal drive, but if you back up to an internal drive, disconnect it and remove it from the chassis before doing any partitioning or operating system installation. By data I mean your files, documents, photos, etc. If you copy your entire /home/yourname folder you will also copy KDE program settings, but it won't always be straightforward to reapply them to a new installation (especially if you change OS version).

Do this before you try any rearranging of your drives or reinstallation.

If you copy data files between drives you will not mess up the computer - you'll still be able to boot up and you'll still be able to access the data.
But if you move (copy and delete the originals) then you might lose data, if the copy was incomplete or had errors. You might not be able to access the data straight away if it's not attached, or not mounted, or mounted at a different location.
If you move operating system files you may end up with a computer you can't boot up, and if you move whole partitions using the partition manager tool, you are very likely to run into problems. But you will still be able to reinstall the operating system.

**SecretCode** · Feb 14, 2015, 05:16 PM

Here are some general thoughts on drives, partitions and operating systems. You might need more than this in order to understand what's going on, but I hope it helps.

Drives

You can have multiple drives, attached internally or externally via USB. And each drive can have multiple partitions, sometimes only one. An operating system needs a whole partition*, but you can easily have multiple OSes on the same drive as long as they are in different partitions. Once as OS is booted, there's not much difference between partitions and drives - they both have a fixed size*.

When you have a drive installed in a computer, whether HDD or SDD it will have a hardware identifier and a bus address. Even if it's new and unformatted. If you move it to another position it will have a different bus address but the same hardware identifier (something like WDC WD10EADS-00L in one of your examples).

The bus address of a given drive is determined by the hardware (until you physically move it) but the mount point is only determined by the operating system and will be different for different operating systems. Specifically, two different Linux OSes installed on the same computer must have different partitions mounted as "/". So, which partition is called "/" depends on which operating system is currently running on the computer!

So, when we are talking about drives, we need to talk about hardware addresses. Most Linux OSes will refer to them as sda, sdb, sdc etc in bus order - the first SATA drive is sda, etc - and you'll see them in the /dev file system tree at /dev/sda, /dev/sdb etc.

Partitions

If a drive is formatted it will have a partition table* and each partition will have a file system formatted on it (or may be empty). The file system will have a type, e.g. ext4 or ntfs or others, and may have a label - this is another kind of name the partition can have. Drive utilities like partition manager can see this information.

When we are talking about mounting drives to read data, we actually mean mounting partitions (and strictly, mounting the file system found on the partition). You can't mount a drive itself (although if it only has one partition, it seems as though that's what you're doing).

Booting

At the BIOS level you can usually change the boot order - it will usually be the first internal drive. You don't usually want to change this except for temporarily booting from a DVD or USB drive, but you could - this is one way of setting up multi-boot but not a good one. Instead, the boot drive should contain a boot loader that knows about multiple installed OSes. You will probably be using the GRUB2 boot loader.

From the BIOS point of view, the boot loader is at the start of the drive and is not in a partition, but typically it branches to a larger boot loader on a partition.

"All you need to do" is install a boot loader to the boot drive, and tell it where the operating systems are (the installer does this for you, of course). You can have any number of OSes - there's no real difference between dual boot and triple boot. Or quadruple boot.

* There are exceptions and variations to everything so some of the above statements are not always true!

**Shabakthanai** · Feb 15, 2015, 02:39 PM

Should I close the other posts? If we solve the problem step-by-step, that is what I want anyway. Otherwise it could get very confusing for me, an opening for mistakes.

Hibernation/suspend sounds like something to do with a Laptop. If so, I am not concerned with this. When I refer to 'swap' I am referring to 'Linux Swap'. I understand the need for a swap partition but really do not understand how it is used, only that it is used in conjunction with the operating system while computing.

steven@steven-Yeshuah:~$ sudo lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 100M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 894.2G 0 part /home
├─sda5 8:5 0 18.6G 0 part /
└─sda6 8:6 0 18.6G 0 part [SWAP]
sdb 8:16 0 119.2G 0 disk
├─sdb1 8:17 0 100M 0 part
├─sdb2 8:18 0 1K 0 part
└─sdb5 8:21 0 119.1G 0 part
sdc 8:32 0 238.5G 0 disk
├─sdc1 8:33 0 100M 0 part /boot/efi
├─sdc2 8:34 0 128M 0 part
└─sdc3 8:35 0 232.7G 0 part /media/steven/A8349DBF349D9144
sdd 8:48 0 931.5G 0 disk
└─sdd1 8:49 0 931.5G 0 part /media/steven/e9d8e97e-5e7d-4b68-9ce2-888ffcf12a77
sr0 11:0 1 7.5G 0 rom /media/steven/STARGATE_SG1_V2_R1_YR5
sr1 11:1 1 1024M 0 rom

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

Shabakthanai; You're over-thinking this a little bit. For example; You don't create any mountpoint for the new install, the installer does that. You need only point it to the partition you want it installed on, it does the rest. Unless you tell the installer to over-write your 14.04 install, nothing there will be touched and it won't even be mounted when you boot into the 15.04 install. The only possible partition that the installer will use automatically is the current swap partition. Mountpoints - including "/" - are just directories that filesystems are connected to, to allow access by the operating system. Any filesystem (partition) can be mounted to any directory. In the unlikely event you choose to mount to a directory being used for another purpose, you can cause problems. That's why there is a directory called "/mnt". It's reserved for you to create directories in and mount filesystem to safely so you can access them. You should not be mucking about with or worrying about the "/" mountpoint. The OS handles that at install just fine.

Might I suggest we take this one step at a time? This will allow you to focus on each part of what we're doing and learn a little bit along the way. I suggest we come up with a plan to protect your data, allow you to install new distros safely, and boot to any or all your drives in case one fails.

First step: You should have installed the new drive into the computer so if you haven't - do that. Then boot to your 14.04 install, open up konsole and enter this command:

sudo lsblk

Cut and paste the results here. This will list all your drives, partitions, mount points that are available, and their sizes. Then we can sort them out and take notes. I usually use paper to lay out my partitioning plan so I don't mess things up.

Please answer the question about hibernation/suspend: Is this something you do or need to do? I suspect not, but if you do lets prepare for it. Once I see the list of your partitions, we'll discuss partitioning the new drive.

**vsreeser** · Feb 15, 2015, 06:00 PM

Originally posted by SecretCode View Post

Booting

At the BIOS level you can usually change the boot order - it will usually be the first internal drive.

This doesn't always work. I have 3 sata drives. Connected to sata1 and sata2 are 1Tb drives (unlickily for me, same type, so I can't tell which is which). on sata3 was a 3Tb drive. It always showed up to windows as drive 3, but to linux as sdb. Swapped it to my other computer and put another 1Tb in main computer. So, now I really don't know which is which. Tried installed windows 7 and kubuntu with a 1Tb eSata connected. Kubuntu put its boot files there. Reinstalled with this drive turned off. Now, everything boots ok and I only turn on eSata to back things up. Just under 15,000 pictures that I don't care to lose, important docs, etc..

Announcement

Need help changing from dual-boot to triple-boot.

Need help changing from dual-boot to triple-boot.

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