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Installing Linux Ubuntu 10.10, advanced method, what do Ext or mount point do I do ?

Hello Guys,

I am now installing Linux Ubunto 10.10 on my laptop as per the link below.

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

In the installation process, step 4, I chose "Specify Partitions manually (advanced)"

I've got a 43 GB empty NTFS partition dedicated to install Linux on. But ofcourse I need to choose mount point, home, ext4 , swap and these stuff. I don't understand them at all though, so could you please explain it in detail to me and tell me what to chose and what sizes to give. Also try to accommodate for compatibility with windows 7, i.e. if NTFS option is available then tell me about it, etc, because I want to run windows 7 alongside linux.

Thanks for your time, please advise

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

FastSi

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JT92677

I'd suggest letting ubuntu setup the partitions automatically. It will result in a working Ubuntu system. You can learn about ubuntu 10 desktop, and later on if you want to reinstall it, you can try the advanced partition approach.

I run Ubuntu on a separate hard disk on a Dell laptop (just got one of the hard drive carriers and can pull out one drive and slip in another with ubuntu on it) and in VMware which is another option.

Bottom line -- just install it and let Ubuntu do the partitioning. You have lots of other things to learn once the OS installed.

Hope this helps

Jeff

heiba

ASKER

thanks, all I need

rindi

First of all don't install Ubuntu to ntfs,as that is a Windows file-system, and not a linux file-system. The standard Linux file-system used today is "ext4".

/home, /, /var, /etc and so on are system folders used by Linux. / is the main or root folder, under which all other folders are available in. Inside /home the users and their data are located (similar to "Documents and Settings" in XP).

You can assign all those folders to different physical partitions on the HD's, to do that mountpoints are used. Sometimes it is useful to have the home folders on a separate partition. Also swap is best a separate partition. The swap partition uses a special "Swap partition" format (not ext4).

How you will size those partitions depends on how you are going to use your system, and how much data, and software you will install. If you are going to have around 20 GB data, you would create an ext4 partition of +20GB, a swap partition of around 500MB (On a PC with lots of RAM such a partition isn't really necessary, on one with a small amount of RAM there should be one), and the rest would again be an ext4 partition for /.

heiba

ASKER

@JT92677

Thanks for your time and advice, but I'de rather do it manually.

heiba

ASKER

@rindi

Thanks for your info, question closed unfortunately.