[SOLVED] Help with installation/partitioning

[Jarke]

I'm interested in trying Linux, and I thought I'd set a side a small portion (maybe 20gb?) of my HD for Ubuntu. I made the boot disk, started my comp. up, got to the installation screen, and got completely lost. I'm not sure which option to choose to be able to specify how much space I want Ubuntu to take up. Can anyone help?

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Don't partition the free space at all and leave it as unallocated. Boot your Linux installation disk then direct the installer to utilize that free space. It should offer to set it all up for you automatically. If you don't like the way it plans to set it up, you can set it up the way you want it by using the manual partitioning option.

[Jarke]

That's the thing. This is the first time I've done something like this, so I don't even know how to set aside free space.

[oz]

If you aren't familiar with partitioning under the command line, the easiest route might be to use the Parted Magic LiveCD. Once you've downloaded the ISO file (it's a small download) and burned it to disk as an image, you can boot with the newly created disk and then start the partitioner (gparted) and it will show you a graphical display of your current partitions layout.

It works like Partition Magic does in Windows so it's menu driven and is very easy to use. You can find further documentation for using it on the liveCD, and on their website.

Let us know how it goes.

[Jarke]

It seems it would be to my benefit to learn how to partition via command line. I looked it up, and found a .exe file called DiskPart from Microsoft. Is this the correct program?

[oz]

It seems it would be to my benefit to learn how to partition via command line. I looked it up, and found a .exe file called DiskPart from Microsoft. Is this the correct program?

No, that would be some kind of Window partitioning application. You might be able to use it but I don't know anything about it so can't recommend it. If you really want to dig into partitioning with the command line, here's a HowTo that you can study to understand how it works:

Linux Partition HOWTO

The quickest/easiest method would probably be to use Parted Magic (gparted) if you are in a hurry, otherwise the command line is a great way to learn about Linux. I would imagine that most new users simply let the installer setup the partitions automatically, but you do have to remember to not let it use the entire drive, or your Windows installation will be overwritten.

[oz]

If you should decide to choose the manual partitioning option during the installation, I generally make my partitions something like the following:

/ about 8 to 12 GB, ext3
swap about 1 GB, swap
/home about 8 to 12 GB, ext3

You could make additional partitions, but it's generally not necessary for the average user, and you don't have to make a separate /home partition if you don't want it. You may or may not need the swap partition depending on the amount of RAM you have and how you use your computer. I recommend utilizing it because it can't hurt to have it in place.

Hope it all goes well.

[Jarke]

When I tried to do it, I went into the manual partitioning option and selected the 20GB of free space I had allocated. When I said I wanted to put the whole the there though, it gave me an error, something about a root drive. I didn't specify anything about /, swap, or /home though. What exactly did I do wrong?

[devils casper]

You have to assign mount_point to every Linux partition. Have you created 3 partitions for Linux as suggested by ozar?

Lets check existing partition structure of your Hard disk first.

Open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[Jarke]

It would seem i just had to make those three partitions as ozar suggested. I'm writing this from my newly installed Ubuntu. Thanks everyone, I hope to be contributing more to these forums as I learn.