..I have read several different opinions on formatting a new hard drive(dual booting).
There seems to be many different ways of setting up the partitions.
Linux is my sole OS,my wife uses the xp.
I had xp and xubuntu on an older drive and want to put both on a brand new 160GB drive.
I plan on using xubuntu as the main OS and only xp ocassionaly..
How might be the best way to set the partitions..The PC is mainly in use for surfing,online school and saving music files..
I have read that to have a faster system several partitions should be set up...
I am just a little un clear about the partitions,should they be a certain size etc,and with the home partition is that where all my files will be stored,or i can store them there?
When i set it up before i followed standard protocal,now i want to best apply the partitions to the new drive.
Any help in this area would be appreciated.
Thanks
PS:Should i have both NTFS and FAT 32,f 32 Xubuntu?

For a system as you are describing I would not worry greatly about sub partitioning your Linux file system. I would suggest that you first start with a Win XP install, then go ahead with the xubuntu install using the install process to help divvy up the hard drive.

Many of the benefits that can be gained in performance by having different partitions handling different functions can be gained by separating Input/Output across multiple spindles so that you are less likely to be held back attempts to exceed maximum throughput capacity, but when you are simply slicing up a single drive into multiple partitions there is no such gain to be had.

One gain that you can have is to create a separate partition for core OS files, one for your log files, and yet another for your user space. The benefits of this process is not specifically performance, instead you create a situation where a runaway log file will not put a cramp on your OS or user space, thus limiting the potential damage caused by a unexpected spike in disk usage on your system. The obvious downside is that your level of flexibility is limited.

Happy Hunting

Here's another opinion:

/dev/sda1 - /Windows XP - NTFS - 10GB
/dev/sda2 - /Shared - FAT32 - how much do you need for files you'll share
/dev/sda3 - Linux swap - swap - twice your physical memory not to exceed 1G
/dev/sda5 - /boot - JFS - 100MB
/dev/sda6 - / - JFS - 8GB
/dev/sda7 - /home - JFS - what's left between this and /Shared
free space of 6GB for possible testing or use later

Thanks a million Bruce and other person..
..I am to assume that this set up will be optimum for Linux?
I am not familiar with the JFS file system,however have heard that it is an efficient file system..I assume it is what xubuntu uses?..What will i benifit by following the above partition set up??
Thanks
ps:Excuse me if i sound ignorant..Bruce i take it that i start with the xp CD,allocate 10gb for it,format it..Then put in the xubuntu CD and do the above partitions? I am a little confused as i have never set things up like that before.
Thanks

I've never used *ubuntu, but it should be fairly easy.

You can make one partition for Windows, and two partitions for Linux (swap and /) and get along fine. The only issue then would be, can your Linux OS read and write to the NTFS Windows partition, if you want to share files. That's all that would be required, but other options will serve you better.

When you install Windows XP, make 2 partitions (you should install Windows first). Make the first one 10GB for your Windows system, and format it NTFS (that's a journalized filesystem, which will help you recover from an improper shutdown or crash). If you have an unusual amount of Windows software, which requires more space, then change that. You can tell from your previous Windows system about what you'll need. One thing to remember with Windows. If you download large files, you'll want to be sure to have free space for them. You cannot download in Windows directly to another partition except it's primary partition. It will first download the file to somewhere like C:\temp\ and then when it's fully downloaded you can save it to D: (or somewhere else).

You can also make another partition for shared data (D:\Shared) while setting up Windows. Format it FAT32 so that both Windows and Linux can read and write to it. There is a relatively new project for Linux which will allow you to write to NTFS, but I'm not familiar with it. You're not going to gain much of anything by formatting a non-OS partition with NTFS in Windows anyway.

Then when you install Xubuntu, I'm assuming it will allow you to partition and format the disk. The Slackware installer does, but you might want to read some of the Ubuntu Wiki, forums, or documentation before starting. It should not be difficult, and if Xubuntu doesn't do it, there are small disc images you can download for Linux that will do that; then Xubuntu would just need to detect them.

As for my scheme, I'd rather not talk a lot of technical stuff. As kvedaa said, there are things you can do for performance, but the gains are so negligible. One thing he mentions is /var for logs. If you're running an Apache, or mail server, on that box ... then it would be good to separate /var to keep your logs from filling up and using up your / (root) partition. But if you're not running any server that logs a lot of stuff, I'd not do that.

If swap (virtual memory) is going to be used, it's nice to have it as a primary partition, hence my thought of /dev/sda3 being for swap. I always like a separate /home partition, because if you decide to reinstall, you can mount it again without formatting it and keep it just as it is. A separate /boot is not necessary, but there are many reasons to have one. On this computer, I have encrypted swap, /, and /home with LUKS encryption; so I must have a separate unecrypted /boot partition to load the initrd (initial ramdisk) image with modules to get me into the system before the kernel has fully loaded. And when the drive has enough space, you'll always find me leaving some free space for something in the future. (I finally decided to try a 64-bit OS on this comp, and was glad that I had left 15GB free).

As for Linux filesystems, I'd only use a journalized one, such as ext3 (not 2), JFS, XFS, or ReiserFS.

This is subjective, and 10 *nix guys might tell you 10 different things. There is a guide on partitioning in our Linux Tutorials section. Look in the menus on the right over there >>>>

Even though I don't do things exactly the way he does, there is another opinion for you to consider.

This Introduction to Linux: A Hands on Guide is a good book which let's you do exercises at the end of the chapters with what you've studied/read. It has a section on partitioning, too.

I'd read the docs for Xubuntu (or whatever you install) to find out how it does things.

Great stuff Bruce! Thanks alot...
I hope that one day i will be able to assist someone in the manner you just did...
Thanks
D

This is possibly the laziest and the quickest.

Just hook up the new drive.

Clone the old disk, with Xubuntu and Xp, into the new 160Gb new disk.

Not sure if gparted is in Xubuntu but it is standard in Ubuntu so use it to "resize" the partitions to use up the extra space in the new disk. One can run Ubuntu as a Live CD.

This thread has all the cloning details.

Why install if you already got them?

....MAN I AM SORRY..about the title,i meant dual Boot..Been up for two days working...Anyway to fix that title?..I was attempting a dual boot of xp and Linux on a new 160GB drive..I placed xp on its 10GB partition...Then put in Xubuntu CD..I followed advice from others about partitioning however i may have gotten click happy or something else happened? I now have xp..occupying abot 78GB and Xubuntu about 80GB??
I take it that now i have two totally seperate operating systems?...That cannot share files?
Is there a way to fix this or must i start all over with the xp CD..If so would someone please write out the instuctions very,precise and clearly for me,i followed someone elses advice, and it was consisting of many partitions and seemed confusing.
If i have to keep the current set up is it ok to do so? or are there alot of disadvantages?? Any advantages of having this set up of two operating systems spread out evenly on a disk?
PS:I am not into gaming at all,mostly just online school,music,surfing..So would it be ok to just leave it this way?
Thanks alot

if its a recent version of Xubuntu it should be able to read/write xp files. There is nothing wrong with this setup that would make you start over, although it would have been a better idea to make a data partition.

Thanks...Exactly how and why a data partition?

What is really you,re problem is the dual boot working oke or not ?If so
only the partitions do not have the size you original have in mind

Sharing files If I down load a file in linux suse 10.3 and for one reason or the other I like to store it on windows xp partition it is possible to do so the other around not but to do it from linux you need root privilege

Chance the size of windows Xp partition is not such a big deal there are plenty free utilities out there.Mostly the a name partition maqic in it.
Changing the linux partition is suse not recommended

So for me if I like to so the only option creating a new partion and mount it in linux And if you do so don,t forget to change the windows xp program to.
But my 160 Gb drive has also 80 windows xp 80 for suse it works well
for me



I hpe it will use full for you

all the best

No problem. Linux can read ntfs (you'll need to install ntfs-3g fro mthe repositories for stable write support) and if you have a 32 bit windows and you used ext2 or ext3 as your file system for Linux, XP can read your Linux partitions (but you'll need to download and install a driver first).

I've merged your two threads on the same subject - again.

I ask you -again!- not to kick of separate threads when still
dealing with the same issue. It's unnecessarily splitting
efforts of our members, and won't get you any better help
than a single thread.


Cheers,
Tink

a data partition is a partition where you keep all your data, its usually fat32 so all operating systems can read it. Its so that you don't have to backup your data(you should anyways) every time you install a new operating system

Thanks Jay..Exactly what steps do i take to do this? Do you know of a link or could you post the steps for me please?...I need my hand held on this one.
Thanks