Just about ready to do my first Linux install. However, the partition size is causing me some confusion. According to the User Guide, 6GB is the recommended partition size, but if I install other software (like MythTV), isn't that going to go in the same partition? Along with their data files? Since my goal is to eventually faze out Win7, wouldn't I be better off assigning a much larger partition to Linux? Currently Win is using 176GB, so I have 510GB to work with. Is there some kind of rule of thumb/formula I should go by? I was thinking of making the Linux partition 300GB. I have several external HDDs if I need to make room in Win.

the answer is that it all depends. I use a 20gb main drive for my OS, with a seperate partition for my data. I've never filled the OS partition, although if I stored everything in one partition, 20gb is no where near enough.

Yes but that depends on which distribution you are installing.
Reading the documentation for the distribution in which you are going to install should help.
There is more that one way to partition.
If your going to be installing to the free space on the HDD that is also sharing Windows on it you will need to manually partition your HDD for your Linux install.

You mentioned that you have 500 GB to work with.
You could make a 300 GB EXT 4 journaling file system partiion and a 1 GB Linux-swap partition for your Linux install.

As an example I created a 20 GB EXT 4 fs partition for Ubuntu and than created a linux-swap partition of 1 GB.

Yes:-

-::-You might want to give details about which distribution you plan to install.-::-

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition
https://linuxnorth.wordpress.com/manual-partitioning/
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US...mmend-x86.html

You might want to recheck that 6GB figure or the date on that User Guide. My /home partition on this computer is over 400GB. From the fdisk -l command:

This article should help. http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/09/...tem-structure/

It explains a bit about the Linux directory structure, which is completely different from that of Windows.

You should be fine with a / (root) partition and a /swap partition.

If the distro you choose offers automatic partitioning, that will be the likely result unless you choose to partition manually. Most distros offer automatic partitioning as part of the install routine (Slackware notably does not).

The old rule of thumb was swap = 2 x RAM, but that was before the days of computers with four or more GB of RAM. With with 4GB of RAM or more, my rule of thumb is swap = 1/2 x RAM (unless you like to hibernate your computer, in which case /swap should be more than RAM, because hibernation files are stored to /swap). (This particular machine has 16GB RAM because I wanted it to.)

I generally set up a root partition to hold everything but /home, a separate /home, and a /swap. The reason for this is that my personal data resides on /home, so I can reinstall the OS to / without disturbing my existing /home.

(By the by, not a word of the above paragraph would have made a bit of sense to me ten years ago. Five years ago, I might have understood about half of it. Linux means learning, and learning is good.)

This LQ thread should also help: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...on-4175449299/

must be outdated.
you always have to look at the date, before following howtos found on the net.

i would not make a single partition of that size.
how much you need for your system really depends on how you're gonna use it.
i used to use 20GB, but installing a few games quickly reaches that limit, now i have 50GB.
B-U-T, i always have a seperate partition for media/data files.

how about this: 100GB for "/" (aka root or system or installation),
and 2 more 200GB partitions for data/media.

For the record, I'm installing LinuxMintRafaela. Downloaded the user guide from this website:

http://www.linuxmint.com/documentati...glish_17.2.pdf. Mint seemed like the easiest place to start getting my feet wet.

I plan to use it for the mundane home stuff and editing some videos/watching TV. Going to use vlc as an editor and save the files to external HD. Then give HD to relatives. Burning DVDs is kind of a pain and memory is getting cheaper.

That being said, I need plenty of room for video editing/TV. I'll be the only user and don't need to login I know video takes up a lot of room and I don't want to be half way thru some project and run into storage problems. That's why I thought I needed a fairly large partition. Then I decided I didn't really understand partitions. The biggest source of confusion is the swap partition. Lots of conversation about it, but not much consensus, still don't know why I need one. The swap 2XRAM would be 8GB. Plus I don't currently store any of my personal info on my desktop. Based on all that what would you recommend?

Sorry, forgot to mention that the videos are all home movies from the last 20 years. So, there's that whole capture thing too.

A swap partition holds the tmp memory pages.
Aside from that a server can boot without a swap partition as long as there's enough RAM.

Depending on what version of Linux Mint you download (Mate, XFCE or KDE); keep in mind that once the distribution is installed the size of the os will increase and any software that you install will also increase the size of the distribution.

I have always created a swap partition on any fresh installation of Linux that I have installed.
I recommend at least a 1 GB swap partition.

Look here for more details: "Advantages and Disadvantages" for having or not having a swap partition.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/swap-partition/

Some Linux users don't create a swap partition instead they create a swap file.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Swap

Thanks so much! The makeuseof explanation cleared almost everything up. I'm sure I'll have more questions, but I think I'm ready to do the install.

Your Welcome; ninian.

Take your time and good luck!-