Needing patitioning advice

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3lud13

Needing patitioning advice

Post by 3lud13 »

Im about to get a new hard drive and am looking at dual booting again with windows for those times my windows friends need assistance with stuff and a few other things Im still finding easier in windows. im wanting my documents on a seperate partition to the actual OS so layed out below is how I think it should work. also I know Linux needs to be ext 2 or something but can my files be say a fat32 or something so windows can read them. I guess also in there somewhere I need a partition for the bootloader also but this is what i have so far

partition File System Label Size
1 Extended 54Gb
2 Linux-Swap 4Gb
3 Ext2 / 50Gb

4 Ntfs Windows 30Gb
5 Fat32 /home remainder
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xenopeek
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Re: Needing patitioning advice

Post by xenopeek »

1. Fine
2. Fine.
3. I wouldn't use Ext2, use Ext4. And 54Gb for / filesystem is more than you need. 20Gb will give you enough room (base install is 6Gb).

4. Sure, and make sure you format this before loading Windows (only if it sees a formatted ntfs partition will Windows not wipe your entire disk).
5. No. Do not put your /home on fat32 or even on ntfs. Put this on Ext4. But perhaps just add a logical partition after nr 3 above for your /home and make this(nr 5) a shared partition for Windows and Linux and any documents / videos / pictures etc. you can link to from your /home partition. Also, use ntfs and not fat32 if you care about your data (fat32 has no provisions for recovery from faults). But preferably you will put all your files on Ext4, and not on a Windows filesystem.

Depending on how much memory you have, I'd suggest why install Windows at all? Just have a full Linux system, and for those times you need to assist people with Windows stuff install Windows in a VirtualBox. Very easy to do and preferred unless you yourself regularly need Windows.
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3lud13

Re: Needing patitioning advice

Post by 3lud13 »

xenopeek wrote:1. Fine
2. Fine.
3. I wouldn't use Ext2, use Ext4. And 54Gb for / filesystem is more than you need. 20Gb will give you enough room (base install is 6Gb).

4. Sure, and make sure you format this before loading Windows (only if it sees a formatted ntfs partition will Windows not wipe your entire disk).
5. No. Do not put your /home on fat32 or even on ntfs. Put this on Ext4. But perhaps just add a logical partition after nr 3 above for your /home and make this(nr 5) a shared partition for Windows and Linux and any documents / videos / pictures etc. you can link to from your /home partition. Also, use ntfs and not fat32 if you care about your data (fat32 has no provisions for recovery from faults). But preferably you will put all your files on Ext4, and not on a Windows filesystem.

Depending on how much memory you have, I'd suggest why install Windows at all? Just have a full Linux system, and for those times you need to assist people with Windows stuff install Windows in a VirtualBox. Very easy to do and preferred unless you yourself regularly need Windows.
3.I did realise that the ext2 file system had progressed a little but brain wasnt functioning too well when I wrote this last night but yes I do agree use ext4. Have left 50gb there as I will probably install other distros in there later or also interested in having a look at virtualbox.
5.The reason I not to keen on putting my files on an ext4 partition is if I do need to windows cant read them, is there some way around this. That kind of was the plan to make this partition my /home partition for my files and shared with windows. Also I have a very good recovery program for fat32 partitions so thats not a major issue for me (though it does on windows)

What is the deal with virtualbox I myself havent used it yet it kind of does appeal to me as I myself don't really need windows I just use it when assisting friends and stuff. Can I have windows permenetly installed with my programs and whatnot or do I need to do a fresh install each time. Also can it still read your files on ext4 partitions or not.
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xenopeek
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Re: Needing patitioning advice

Post by xenopeek »

VirtualBox allows you to create a virtual machine, which you can start and then boot any OS from a physical CD/DVD or from an ISO image. In the virtual machine you can create a virtual harddisk (just a big file on your Linux filesystem), so you can have a permanent installation of Windows and its programs. You can then also install the VirtualBox guest additions on that Windows, and this will allow your Windows running on the virtual machine to access a lot of hardware more directly. There are various ways you can share files between the virtual machine running in VirtualBox, and the host operating system (Linux in this case). I'm not sure about it, but I think the guest additions allow you to share files. But at least you could, and it is easy, to setup a network fileshare for the Windows virtual machine to access files on your Linux partitions.

You can have multiple virtual machines, each just a file on your Linux filesystem, and you can then start them in VirtualBox when needed. I currently have 8 virtual machines. Only consideration is that your machine should have a bit of memory; less than 2 GB of memory will make it though to run your own OS and the virtual machine OS.

Just install virtualbox-4.0 and give it a try (you can get it on Linux and Windows).
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