Need help setting up partitions to triple boot with win 8

I haven't used Linux in a while and just got a new PC.. so I wanna install Mint 14 and Vector Linux 7 along side of windows 8 for a triple boot. I am going to try to get them both running under UEFI with Secure Boot disabled btw.

I want to manually set up the partitions using Mini Tools Partition Wizard and not use the distros gparted or whatever they use to configure the partitions. This is easier for me as I'm used to the software. Having to create the Swap, Home etc always confuses me..

Don't both distros share the same swap partition so i will only need to create one? Other than that, places walk me through this.

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Originally Posted by DarkPenquin

I want to manually set up the partitions using Mini Tools Partition Wizard and not use the distros gparted or whatever they use to configure the partitions. This is easier for me as I'm used to the software. Having to create the Swap, Home etc always confuses me..

Don't both distros share the same swap partition so i will only need to create one?

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I know nothing at all about mini tools partition wizard so can't help with that, but yes you only need one SWAP partition and you might not need it if you have plenty of RAM on the new system, depending on your usage habits. Sharing a /home partition can also be achieved but it can become messy, so you might want to create a separate one for each distro.

Many users create a separate /home partition but I've never used one and believe that it can create problems also. You would be better off, particularly as a new user, to just create one partition for the installation and create a separate data partition later or multiple data partitions for different types of data. It all depends upon what you are going to use the computer for. Having a single root partition with a separate data partition means you can upgrade or install a new system to that partition without worrying about losing your personal data.

Thanks but I'm still confused. I normally would follow instructions for each distro and struggle through it but I had more partitions then. Now I only have one partition, my windows partition, I can shrink to make room for multiple other OS's. Here is what my system looks like now: http(colon)//imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/part3ec(dot)png/ ( please replace (colon) and (dot) with a real colon and dot.. sorry) That 3 primary partitions. Ignore the 400 MB unallocated space from the top position, that is from a un-needed and deleted recovery partition. In number 2 slot is my EFI system partition, 3 slot is my reserved partition I assume is for booting Windows and other distros through in Legacy Bios mode (but I may be wrong about this) and my ntsf C drive containing windows 8 is last.

I'd like to get rid of the 400 MB unallocated space too but since it's on the left of C i have found no way to do that.

I have heard I can make some space by shrinking C and set up logical partitions. I would need at least 2 containers to install 2 Linux distros to but i'd like to reserve space for a 4th to quadruple boot if possible. The 4th possibly being Zorin or a non Linux OS like Haiku. I hear I can use logical partitions for Linux but don't know how to split up my unallocated space from my C drive to do that. I'd like to use 20 Gb for each distro. I'd like to name each partition. For instance, i would set up ( in my unalocated space from C that i make, 4 20 GB containers. One would be a small 3 gig swap ( I have 8 gigabytes of ram so i dont think I need a huge swap file.) and 3 would be 20 gigs each labeled Mint, Vector and Zorin.. and of course thats for quad boot and i'd still have Windows 8. I think I'd need to create 63 gigabytes of space. Split this up into one 3 gig and 3 20 gig partitions. The 3 will be labeled for each distro and allocated as home using the ext4 file system. This will make it easy to use these when i install each distro. i would simply point each distro to it's own home partition and the swap partition which is shared.

Is this correct or do i have everything messed up?

If you already have 3 partitions, you would need to create an Extended partition using the fourth primary. Inside the Extended, you would be able to create a number of logical partitions for the various operating systems. If you have 8GB of RAM, you probably won't need swap but create it if you want.

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The 3 will be labeled for each distro and allocated as home using the ext4 file system

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The mount point for the filesystem should be "/" root, the forward slash symbol which you can select during the install. I'm not sure why you would want the mount point to be /home??

I meant that for each system I would set up Home and Root ( but I forgot to type root) I must have been distracted. Thank you, i have since decided instead of trying to make all the partitions at once just to do each one as i install each OS.

It is easier to experiment with Linux distros by creating a bootable CD, DVD or USB stick. Boot from the device, then experiment away. Some USB versions allow changes to the OS to be saved to the USB, others boot from an image file that cannot be changed.

Once you've decided which one you like, install it permanently to your hard drive.

Just be careful. Win8 relies upon UEFI and secure-boot, and if you don't disable secure-boot in the BIOS, then you may well "brick" your system on installation of Linux, unless you install a version that supports UEFI+secure-boot.