File system and swap

[mickel]

Hi friends, I had been an exclusive Linux, (mostly Mint KDE), user until not long ago when I got a new desktop with dual core 2.3, processor 8g of ram and 500 gig hard drive with Windows 7 64bit. To be fair, its' great, but so is Mint and I miss it. I am trying Mint 10 on live DVD ; it is fabulous and would like to install it in dual boot set-up. Question: since I will be starting off with Windows only, should I use some Windows based partitioner on CD or is Gparted on the Mint live DVD ok ? ( I know that Windows 7 has a built in partition manager but I'm not comfortable with it.) Q2: with all this RAM do I still need a swap partition? and lastly, which file system would be best and should I use the 64 or 32 Mint ?
Thanks

[seeley]

Hi!
The latest version of GParted (0.7.1) is the best partition editor. LMDE has it, but Mint Julia or Mint 9 does not have it.
I recommend PartedMagic 5.9, it contains many useful tools: latest GP, UNetbootin, TestDisk,...
If you don't use "suspend to disk" you don't need a swap partition.
File system for Linux: ext4.
seeley

[viking777]

Q1 It is a long time since I had a Win partition to resize, but when I was in that position I always used a Win partition manager to resize win partitions. The question is though, if you are not comfortable with Win7 disk management then what else have you got? I always used Acronis, but if you don't have it then there is no point in buying it just to resize one disk. I always use gparted to create partitions before I install but I only have Linux partitions to resize. Lately my impressions of the installer are that it is much more reliable at resizing partitions than it used to be.

Q2 No.

Q3 If you don't use 64 bit then you will need to find a pae or himem kernel because 32 bit versions will not address even half of that amount of ram. I have no personal experience of this but you can read a short discussion of it here:

http://community.linuxmint.com/idea/view/916

[mickel]

Thanks fellas for the good info. I have never been disappointed in this forum.

[seeley]

Hi mickel!
Glad to read that!
Please add, as usually done by the OP, [solved] to the subject line of your first posting.
seeley