Multi-boot planning

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kansasnewb

Multi-boot planning

Post by kansasnewb »

I've been using Ubuntu since about March. I started out with Freespire and gOS 1.0.1 in February - don't laugh - we all start somewhere, and discovered the Gnome desktop from gOS, then downloaded and installed Ubuntu 7.10, loved it and it was nearly release time for Hardy and I've been using Hardy since the Release Candidate came out, and I've loved it.

But I love the look of Mint so I simply must give it a true test drive. I've tried the Live CD and it's time to install but I have a question about partitioning. I'm currently running a dual-boot with Win XP (sorry, it stays!) and Hardy. I'm not sure how this image hosting works (new to me) so I apologize in advance if it doesn't work:

[img]<a%20href="http://s345.photobucket.com/albums/p372 ... ucket"></a>[/img]

What I have (hopefully the image makes this explanation unnecessary) is one 29gb Windows XP partition (sda1), and about a 45gb extended partition (sda2) that contains an appropriate Swap (sda6) and the Hardy partition (sda5).

Where my indecision comes in is this:
{a}should I only "shrink" Ubuntu (sda5) and install Mint within the same extended partition (sda2) and have them share the same Swap or:
{b} would it be better to "shrink" both sda5 and sda2, and then create a new extended partition for Linux Mint and give it it's own Swap.

I'm not concerned about data loss because I long ago learned to backup everything.
All important data is stored on removable drives and/or CD's and DVD's. In fact my drive is virtually free of data, which is why I don't bother with creating a separate Home partition either, in fact the Win partition could be much smaller if Win didn't splatter unmovable data all over a partition, but it doesn't matter to me, an 80gb hard drive is huge for my purposes.

One advantage I can see if I choose option {b} is that I could just choose "Guided - use the largest continuous free space" when installing but I have done some manual partitioning before so I'm not scared of partitioning.

Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated. Except those suggesting I delete the Win partition :D
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.
kansasnewb

Re: Multi-boot planning

Post by kansasnewb »

Looks like I need some guidance in the image posting department too :oops:
kansasnewb

Re: Multi-boot planning

Post by kansasnewb »

Image
By erick_l at 2008-07-20
kansasnewb

Re: Multi-boot planning

Post by kansasnewb »

Well, I'm one step closer. I have only one computer right now because my youngest kids have finally moved out ......... ah, empty nesting finally. But I wimped out and changed hard drives just to do a full install as a final test drive.

The test drive was a total success! Soooo easy! Everything just worked although sound is weak but I'll probably just need to install and tweak gnome-alsamixer or the equivalent.

So now I'm ready to do the multi-boot with Mint, Ubuntu Hardy and Win XP, I know what I want to do with partitioning and I've actually done some multi-booting before: Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu ............... hey I like to play :lol:

But at that time I hadn't discovered startupmanager - which is pretty neat to deal with dual-boot options, kernel updates, etc. and I'm just wondering if I should remove startupmanager from my Ubuntu Hardy before I install Elyssa?

Common sense tells me that stage 2 (I think) of GRUB will be changed anyway so it probably won't matter. Planning is always better than breakage though, eh?

Oh, and thanks for the previous response!
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