Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

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pmgant

Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

Post by pmgant »

I want to install Mint on my new Thinkpad. At the moment the 200Gb drive has XP installed and the situation is as follows:

1) 200Gb drive with 40 Gb formatted as NTFS and XP installed.

2) Remaining 160 Gb is unformatted

3) Drive C: (the 40Gb partition) has been ghosted so if this all goes bad I do have backups.

I want to allocate 40Gb to XP and 160 Gb to Linux Mint with dual boot but I'm stuck. When I launch the setup I get as far as the partition window and the program automatically allocates 14 Gb to XP and 25 Gb to Mint, obviously this is not what I want. Please could someone handhold me through this bit of the Mint setup?

P Gant
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
proxima_centauri

Re: Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

Post by proxima_centauri »

When the LiveCD is running -> open Partition Editor set up your partitions how you like them.
When you run the installer do a manual install and choose the partition(s) you set up for "/", "/home" SWAP, etc.
nebcanuck

Re: Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

Post by nebcanuck »

I thought there was normally an option to "use free space" on the disk. That, I would presume, would use the 160 Gb that you have freed up.

As it is, you can select "Specify Partitions Manually". From there, you should be able to see listed your Windows partition and your free space. To make a new partition on the free space, click on the space in the list, and then click "New Partition".

You'll want to format it as either ext3 or ext4, and set the mount point.

Personally, I create three partitions. One specified as swap, one specified as "/home", and one specified as "/". The swap space can vary depending on usage, but will give you better system performance under certain conditions. I tend to go about the same size as my RAM although there is no hard and fast rule as to that. The / partition doesn't need to be huge. I tend to give it 10 Gb, although this is more than is necessary. If you're liable to use up all of your 160 Gb then you might seek out more specific required sizes. Finally, the rest of the space I dedicate to /home, which is like Documents and Settings under XP (to give as relevant an example as possible). Know that these are all just my way of doing things, and may be less efficient than some. I find that it makes some things (like upgrading versions of mint) easier.

If I'm stating obvious facts, sorry, I was running on the fact that you said you needed help through the install. If that's too complicated, it may be better for you to try out mint4win, or spend some time in the documentation. For a long time, the installer partitioning was a deterrent to me when I went to install Linux alongside Windows. Once you're able to grapple with that much learning, though, the rest of the system begins to come a little more freely.
nebcanuck

Re: Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

Post by nebcanuck »

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=13252

If you download the user guide mentioned in that post, you should be able to muddle your way through the partitioning just fine! :)
Aging Technogeek

Re: Dual Boot With XP and Linux Mint

Post by Aging Technogeek »

See also:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=11872

The only thing I would add to nebcanuck's post is that there is no requirement to use the entire free space on the disk to install Mint. if you are not going to be saving a lot of photos, videos, or music 5 to 10 Gig is more than adequate for a /home partition. You can always add more space to /home if needed.

Also, the consensus on swap is swap should equal ram up to a total of swap plus ram of 4 Gig; with the exception that in a laptop that you want to hibernate, swap must be equal to or greater than ram (everything in ram is saved to swap during hibernation). A desktop with 2+ Gig of ram can be set up with as little as 256 Meg of swap space, ( You need some swap space to keep Linux from behaving unpredictably.)

With the advice of nebcanuck and the two referenced threads you should have no problems installing Mint.

Gook luck and welcome to the Mint community.
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