I'm not a nebie to Linux, as i have it installed on other machines.

This question is about partitioning a 80gb hard disk,

The 80gb is the total size of what i have to work with on this box and would like a duel boot system Linux & WindowsXP. The Linux is used everyday for internet/music/photo, the windows partition will be used for a few minutes once a month to update a satnav appliance (TomTom).

So the question is what percent of the disk should go to each desktop, how would you divide the 80gb?



thanks for time

If you think you might use Windows for stuff besides updating your TomTom then add a G for each additional use up to 10G, if not, 3G, the rest Linux.

Rather than dual booting, I would run Windows in a virtual machine. The only thing I would have to study would be whether the VM has access to the serial/USB port the TomTom uses.

Running it in a VM would mean you wouldn't have to set aside a partition for Windows, you wouldn't have to reboot the computer when you wanted to run Windows, and you could make a backup of Windows anytime you wanted by copying the couple VM files.

Otherwise, if you wanted/had to dual boot, and you didn't plan on doing anything else in Windows, 8GB should be more than enough hard-drive space.

8-10GB Windows
8-10GB Linux
~30GB shared data
balance empty (unpartitioned)--for future changes

I now use ext3 for shared data---I access from Windows using the ext2fsd driver. (But then I hardly ever boot into Windows)

thanks all for the quick replies, and keep them coming.

10gb max for windows then, If it was'nt for the satnav update i would'nt have windows at all, i settled on a duel boot as im not keen on the other options.

I would also check out wine when you have your linux system setup. I recently went back to trying wine after a while and installing some of my old games were as simple as the windows install and after some through testing I haven't found a problem in performance. This would give you 10GB back but more importantly starting your program under linux is as easy as starting it under windows.

check it out

I'd have to agree w/ Slick666. I have a dual boot system as a backup for things that just won't work with wine or VMWare. I have VMWare for things that won't work for wine, and I have wine. I rarely have to boot my VM or reboot to Windows, and typically when I do the things that weren't working in wine aren't working in the other two either.

HTH

Forrest