Installation advice - running windows within Mint.

[elsmandino]

Hi,

I am a Linux beginner and am just about to consider installing Mint for the first time.

I have a formatted 1TB Hard Drive for installation and I am running with 12GB of RAM and a Athlon II 240e CPU.

What I want to do, once I have installed Mint, is then to install Windows 7 within it so I can run it virtually using VMWare Player.

The problem is partitioning etc - as a long time user of Windows I am not particularly familiar with the way they are used in Linux.

I have just been watching a video on Mint and it warns that unlike Ubuntu, Mint cannot automatically update itself, thus you have to keep a separate root and home partition.

This is what I think I need to do before installation (based upon what I have read on Linux generally).

1. Create a 30GB partition for /, where I can install Mint.
2. Create a 10GB swap file partition - my RAM Size plus a couple of Gigs.
3. Create the rest as a single partition as my home, but rather than format as ext4, format it as NTFS so when I install Windows virtually, it can share this area.

Is this correct?

Sorry - if any of this does not make sense. I am learning Linux from scratch but eager to persevere.

Thanks

[jonas108]

Hey,

I am a beginner here myself, so take it with a grain with salt, but let me just say, that i think, NTSF is and should very much stay a windows thing, because not all Linux programs might not work under it. I think what you can do as a compromise tho is simply mounting Ext3 with a few tricks in windows or make a virtual network with samba and share files via that way?

[elsmandino]

Hello,

Thank you for that - you are completely correct.

I have been doing a bit more reading on Linux partitioning and it does seem that putting the home folder on a NTFS formatted partition is a bad idea - it needs to be formatted with ext3.

Therefore - do I need an additional partition (NTFS) that I can use to install Windows on virtually and also use for storing data that can be used by LInux and Windows?

E.g.

1. Root partition
2. Swap partition
3. Home partition (ext3)
3. General Partition (NTFS)

[usbtux]

http://youtu.be/pq2bsTh_dDs How to use unetbootin to make a liveusb from windows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKL1tmn-xC0 This video shows how to install to a external - for internal just make sure to install to /dev/sda and the boot loader is pointed to /dev/sda

Your partition sizes will be different to mine.

[timk]

You won't be able to use NTFS for /home, that will cause all kinds of problems. Personally, I like to throw all my spare space at /srv, and bind mount from there.

[elsmandino]

HI,

So how many partitions should I be creating before installing Mint?

[endlesslyonline]

Im also a newbie, so I might not be the best person to answer, so I stand to be corrected.

But, why not just leave mint to choose the partitions for you? I too am running windows on a VirtualMachine(virtualbox) within mint. When you configure the VM, it will assign a specified amount of space for your VM, which will be in a single file format, so according to me, creating a whole partition is going to be a waste.

You can then "network" the virtual machine and the physical host together to share folders and data between the host and the VM

[timk]

You don't need to worry about your partitioning scheme too much on your desktop. You can throw everything in / to start with if you like. At the least I like to put /home separate just in the interests of being able to upgrade the system without touching your /home. If you have an SSD you might want to put /var on a regular disk due to the fact that /var is constantly being written to.

[elsmandino]

Thanks very much for that.

I think that I shall just go with a default installation for the time being - at least until I start to grip with Linux, and I can review later on.

Endle

I too am running windows on a VirtualMachine(virtualbox) within mint.

How are you getting on with this? - I have been trying to research whehter Virtualbox or VMWare Player is the better option but it seems fairly evenly split and each has their pros and cons.

Do you think it really matters or is there a reason to opt for Virtualbox?

[endlesslyonline]

How are you getting on with this? - I have been trying to research whehter Virtualbox or VMWare Player is the better option but it seems fairly evenly split and each has their pros and cons.

Do you think it really matters or is there a reason to opt for Virtualbox?

To be honest, i think it comes down to personnel preference. I must confess that I have never used VMWare on linux, I did however have VMWare and VirtualBox both installed on my Windows machine a while ago, and for some reason, nothing big, cant even remember the reason, i just preferred VirtualBox.