ok so am about to install my new larger hard drive in laptop and am coming up with partitioning ideas have included an image from a usb of kind of what I am aiming for though would like to make a few changes but not sure how if anyone could help me out it would be greatly apprieciated.


sdb1 ext4 is for boot loader so easier to install and remove various distros
sdb2 ntfs for windows install for gaming and music (sorry still prefer itunes to sort out my music over anything have found in linux)
sdb3 extended partition to include everything linux related
sdb5 ext4 for a home folder so dont lose documents when playing with different distros
sdb6 ext4 will be my main installed distro (currently looking like mint 13 cinamom)
sdb7 ext4 will be secondary install of main distro (to try things out before commiting to main install)
sdb8 ext4 will be another partition for trying different distros

to this would like to add a partition where all my programs get installed to be shared between multiple distos as I always find myself downloading the same programs each time I reinstall (just not sure what mount points to use or even if its possible)

Is that screenshot from a smaller, test drive? Or is it really only 15GiB? If it's that small, don't partition it, you won't be able to run anything. I wouldn't try to install a Linux distro in less than 10GB (generally I allow 25GB each) even with /home elsewhere.

What version of windows? Vista or later often require 2 partitions. And you're asking for trouble installing XP in less than 20GB / Win7 in less than 40GB (more is better).

Sharing /home between multiple distros is OK in principle, as long as you aren't running different versions of the same program that then see conflicting configuration dot-files.

Sharing installed program space between different distros doesn't sound like a good plan. Certainly not with distro-supplied package managers.

This thread good for me too. Is there a tutorial for dual booting windows 7 either in linuxquestions or in youtube that is recommended?

I have 150 Gib Hdd, just re-installed windows 7 after partition error. I am interested in Mint Xfce and Xubuntu. Even Slackware. I would also like a trial space. And I can use G Parted and another partition tool I have in Fedora 17. How does one prepare the right partitions? And mount them?
Ext 4, NFTS?

There are as many answers as there are people

Assuming windows is installed first (safest because windows believes there are no other operating systems in the world), I leave its default primary partitions in place (here, a fat32 RECOVERY partition and the ntfs OS partition) and then:

- create an ext4 data partition
- create an ntfs data partition for files shared with windows - Linux reads ntfs better than Windows reads ext3/4
- create as many 25GB partitions for multiple Linux distros as I feel like - at least 2, one for current use and one for checking out the next version
- and a swap space.

I don't bother with a separate /home partition; I keep that within each distro install with symlinks to the data partition.

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Thanks and how would you size the partitions? I think I also could have two distros on aside Windows 7.

If you're going to install serious apps in windows, give it 50GB. Give each distro 25GB. Amount of swap is up to you, but must be bigger than your RAM if you want to use hibernation. Then all the rest in the data partitions.

I delayed for other things, and now was applying G parted to an old hard drive to dual boot two linux distros, and G parted says, that I should not have more than four partitions, and to create and extension 4 partition with others in it. I don't understand.

I had tried to make an unallocated space of 65 Mb for Boot Loader, 22 Gb for Linux, nfts, and 1 Gb swap, then going onto another unallocated space for the latter two, but then G parted disagreed.

Should I do an install of say Ubuntu Studio and resize from there?

Partitioning basics:
The old style MBR partitioning system allows only for primary partitions on a disk. that is what GParted complains about when you try to create a fifth partition. To circumvent this limit delete the last partition on the disk and create an extended partition over the whole free space, In that partition you can now create new logical partitions, dependent on the system I think the limit is either 16 or 128.

If I am not mistaken, Windows must always be the first partition on the hard drive. It looks like its the last from your pic. If that's the case, it won't ever boot.