A couple of questions before making partitions
 

Hello

I have been trying to understand primary, logical and extended partitions and how to use them when installing arch linux in dual boot with win7.

Scenario:
Laptop. 1 disc. 2 partitions. C: for win7 and Q: for recovery.

These has to be intact when installing Arch Linux.

What i want to know is what kind of partitions i need to make for linux when i install it with win7 dual boot.

Thanks

/d

As I understand it, you are going to need another primary partition for the linux installation. You may also need a swap partition too.

AIUI W7 boot loader is quite picky so you might want to find some instructions on how you configure that to play nicely in the dual boot scenario.

Partition naming conventions for Linux are not the same as windows. They won't show up as letters as in windows but drives will be referenced as sda, sdb, etc. and the partitions will have numbers after them: sda1, sda2, etc. You need to take care that you install to a partition that doesn't have data on it.

Linux doesn't care whether its partitions are primary or logical.

A disk can have up to four primary partitions or up to three primary partitions plus one extended partition.

An extended partition is a container that can hold several logical partitions.

You need some unpartitioned space to install Linux. So if your win7 partition and recovery partition fill the drive, you will need to first shrink the C: partition before installing Linux.

Shrinking the C: partition is best done within Windows 7. But do not create partitions for Linux within Windows. Instead leave the space unpartitioned.

I'm not sure about arch Linux: Most Linux installers are designed with an obvious choice to use the unpartitioned space on a drive and the installer will partition that space for you as appropriate for that install.

In other cases, it may be easier to boot a Linux liveCD and use the GUI partitioning tool to create the desired Linux partitions before running the installer.

You probably want just a / partition and a swap partition. With just two Windows partitions plus just two Linux partitions, it would be possible to have all four primary. But I suggest making one extended partition from all the space freed by shrinking C: (and/or space that was already unpartitioned before shrinking C:) then make both (all) Linux partitions logical. If you need to use a liveCD to move and shrink partitions later to add more partitions, having logical partitions for Linux gives you more flexibility. Having four primary partitions gives you zero flexibility.

@GlenMH
Thanks for the heads up with AIUI W7.

@yancek
Thanks for the input

@johnsfine
This is exactly what i needed to know. Im using gparted on a USB stick to shrink C:. There is an automated option for partitions in Arch Linux installer but only if i want to remove existing partitions, it just removes everything. I have however gotten to know the installer and how to make partitions for linux with unpartitioned space.

Thank you all.

Next thing i need is win7 dual boot and i have found plenty of material there.

/d

I would not do it that way. I've seen that work, but I've also seen it hang.

Windows 7 has an option somewhere (I forget where) to shrink its own partition. I think that is faster and safer than using gparted for that step.

There is an excellent diskmanager in windows for this yes.

Problem:
Only the admin in the office is allowed to access those functions. I am however allowed to install linux on it without wasting the admins precious time. =)

If i cant find a failsafe solution online i will ask the admins.