I got to the part where I'm supposed to partition Mint. I've got a 500GB hard drive, and I thought I'd give 300GB to LM--but I'm unclear about using ext2, 3 or 4. What about the swap file? Is that automatic?

Thanks,

2cen

I have never personally installed Mint, do I don't know if it will automatically create a swap partition, but I would assume not. It might prompt you if you would like to make one, but I don't think it is going to add another partition to the drive without asking you first.

As for the filesystem, EXT2 is very old and is really only included for backwards compatibility, the modern versions are EXT3 and EXT4. EXT4 is still a bit experimental as it was only recently added to the stable kernel; if you are worried about possible data loss or compatibility issues, you would be safer sticking with EXT3 for awhile.

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Thanks MS3FGX! That's very helpful.

Mint will create a /swap & a /root automatically.

you might also want to manually create a extra partition for /home <your data>.
format the /home & the /root as ext3 & /swap as swap.

Or, just let the installer do it's thing with the one partition,
that you have resized from the C: drive.

BTW - after your have resized the C: drive, reboot back into win7,
so it can check the C: drive filesystem.
then boot from the Mint cd ....

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Just in case...

You might try to use the Win 7 disk tool to shrink the Win 7 partition before beginning to install Mint, creating a cleared space for Mint and note where the space begins. Some of those new to linux have been confused by GParted and inadvertently partitioned their whole HDD. Having a ready space will make it easier to avoid a mistake.

You might use Mint as a live-cd or a copy of a partitioning live-cd such as PartedMagic to look at your Win 7 partition table with the command "fdisk -l" in order to see how Win 7 is installed before you do anything. Win 7 can be installed on several partition, and your HDD has a four partition limit.

If you have only one or two partitions available and need more than that, first partition the space for linux as an extended partition. Within that, use logical partitions for your linux partitions.

Remember to look carefully at what GParted proposes and explore the options that are presented. You can always abort the process and start again, learning as you go and getting the results you want.

http://linux.about.com/cs/linux101/g...ded_partit.htm

Good Luck

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It might be best to resize and partition the hard drive from within windows 7. Windows will, most likely, not shrink the drive enough for you, from my experience. Gparted would not handle the job last time I tried.

Defrag windows and install a free partition manager from the link below. I would suggest making the mint root(/) partition 50 gigs or so. Make a 2 gig swap partition. Make a data partition for linux any size you like or make it a "home" partition if you like. This enables reinstalls without compromising data.

Your laptop will have a recovery partition for windows 7 and it could be the first one of 10 to 30 gigs. You might want to leave it intact.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/search...tition&x=0&y=0

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I think you should start with a virtual machine. Almost no way to bork your W7 install and you'd be able to run both at the same time. Your system would most likely support VT technologies and run linux at native speeds in the VM. You can change your OS as often as you change socks or girlfriends or whatever.

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Thanks, pierre! I've got my work cut out.

Thanks, thorkelljarl! This gives lots of room for thought and planning.
I think I can manage. Lots of good ideas. I'm glad I didn't just bumble ahead as my usual want. Thanks!

Good idea, fair_is_fair! I've got partition magic, so I should be able to accomplish that!

Thanks, Jefro for the suggestion.

And thanks everyone for the wealth of information! This is greatly appreciated!

2cen