Ubuntu partitions on a laptop
 

Hi. I download the ISO of the latest Ubuntu (5.10), and I want to install it on my laptop which has WinXP 2 on it, which is the single OS (I had Fedora Core 1 a long time ago with Grub, but I removed it since then). My laptop has 256mo of RAM, and 28G of space. I want to use as less as possible space for linux since I am mainly using windows for my work. From my previous linux experience with Fedora, 5 gigs was quite enough. I'd like to use in total 4G with the latest Ubuntu (swap, / and /home). Is it enough? Do I make a partition of 4-5G without any file system and then let it to the installer so it can use it to create the partitions needed with this space?

Thanks!
Max

It'll probably be tight, but should work.
I'm typing this on an old P-III laptop with a 20Gig drive and 256Meg. Has Win2K and a new Ubuntu build on it. Ununtu is on 4Gig, and is using 2.1Gig - and the 512Meg swap is half used.
Runs o.k., so you should be right to proceed.
I had the swap pre-allocated, so I honestly don't know what the installer does if you don't pre-allocate. Ubuntu doesn't use a separate /home by default.

Hey syg00, thanks for the reply!
I was wondering, as many suggests having the /home partition by itself, what do you think of the following:
/ : 3G
/home: 1G
/swap: 512MB

Also, does having /home by itself means that I could change to another linux distro in the / and use the existing /home partition for user accounts? Or I should just put the root and home in the same partition since I use limited space?

Thanks,
Maxime

Generally I like to use a separate /home for the reason you raised. Wasn't worth it in this case as I will probably only have mail.
I would have thought a Gig was a bit much, but each to their own. The Ubuntu will grow, and your product set will be different to mine - mine is pretty limited. Updates require extra space during the process before the old version is deleted - I'd think 3 Gig would be pushing it.

Alright, thanks for your reply. What I'll prolly do is the following:
/ : 4G
/home: 512MB
/swap: 512MB

Which means 5G in total, so I'll resize the windows partition a bit more.
I'm having some bad sectors (which is fixed now) when I resize with Partition Magic, and now I have some "File record marked free" errors to fix with chkdsk /f. I use Partition Magic because when I run the Ubuntu installation, I cannot make it partition my drive. We'll see if it gets any better after I fix the errors on my drive!

ntfsresize is excellent - I use it all the time from Knoppix. If you run it yourself from the CLI rather than having a GUI slapped over the top of it you get the error messages.
After the chkdsk /f, you should be fine.

Be careful that PM doesn't mark your XP partition as hidden when it's finished. Dunno why, but several people have reported this - stops XP booting.

Do you think that once I fix my disk I should use Partition Magic to make the free space partition and check if my disk is now OK, or should I use the partition tool during the installation of Ubuntu to resize my disk? And when I use Partition Magic, do I just resize the Win partition and let the rest marked as a free space or I have to "format" it as "unformatted" ? I know that the installation wizard will format it with ext3, swap and whatnot after.

Thanks,
Maxime

Shouldn't matter what you use - whatever you feel comfortable with.
I prefer to use the open systems tools where I can; I also don't have a copy of PM any more.

Just leave the space unallocated.

Alright, thanks a lot for your help. I've been trying to install Ubuntu for so long, can't wait to do that.

Maxime

Ok, I ran chkdsk /f, found no errors. Then I ran PM again to partition, got another error code (1517). Went into reboot, and then a nice blue screen appeared at the very beginning of the booting process of windows. Went into Recovery Console with the WinXP CD, ran chkdsk /r and now it boots up, but with like half of the processes (27 instead of the original 40s). Is the hard drive the problem, or should I run chkdsk 2-3 times again as I've seen in some forums?
Thx, Maxime

Can't see why rerunning the chkdsk would do any harm.
If you have a Knoppix disk, try running "ntfsresize -i" (info only) from a terminal and see if it gives any better messages.

One point to consider is that Linux cannot reliably write to an NTFS partition. It can read them. If it is likely that you will want to create/alter files in Linux and access them from XP your best bet is to create a FAT32 partition.

ZB

Hi. Thanks zaphop_es for your advice. So to let you know, I did a backup of my data, and I installed Ubuntu on the whole drive, hence erasing Windows. This way, I'll check if it was only my windows that was corrupted over time, or if it is actually the hard drive.
What I'll do is to give a try to Linux on my laptop for the next few days. I haven't used the latest linux versions since a while (still running redhat 9 at school), so I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the improvements (accurate battery meter, good wireless except for WPA2, fast to load its crazy!). I'll check if I'm able to use it for the future as a solid replacement of Windows. There's a couple things to get fixed before though: such as wireless with WPA2, touchpad scolling, power saving modes, palm hotsync, all the players to play videos and sound, some development tools unique to windows (such as visual studio). Also I have to fix a serious errors that doesnt enable me to install softwares such as Winrar or Firefox: "error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory". Thats the thing with linux: you have to fix a couple things before being able to use it like you want :P

Thanks for your help guys,
Maxime

Just as a side note: the library problem is fixed now. So I have the latest Firefox!
Btw, how do you do internet updates with Ubuntu?

Start with the menus at the top - you might find all sorts of things of interest.
System -> Administration -> Update Manager.

Personally I don't bother - you'll get a little red button next to the Network Connection icon(top right) when there is something to pick up.
If you want new products use synaptic.

This is untrue. I use it often for a long time and never had any problem, nor I met anybody who lost anything using the rewritten NTFS driver. It's about 3-4 years old. Only the old news floting around still from 2000 when the original NTFS driver corrupted Windows 2000 partitions because it worked only with NT4 NTFS.

Today the Linux-NTFS drivers support Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, Windows NT4 and Windows Vista. All NTFS versions are supported, used by 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. See more for example here: http://wiki.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php?id=ntfsmount