Kubuntu 7.10 dual boot install on XPS M1330 Question/Help

I want to install Kubuntu 7.10 GG on my Dell M1330 as well and keep the Vista OS on the there. I though i would use the recovery partition that dell setup as the main space to install this. when i boot the live CD and run the install utility i selected the manual partition option and tried to create a partition for the root file system consisting of 8 out of the 10 GB from the recovery partition, and then use the last 2 GB as the swap file. But when i create the partition for the root file system, the left over 2 GB space is "unusable". Is this because you can't have more than 4 primary partitions on the drive? I want to keep my vista partition (146GB), and the media direct partition (2.6GB). The third partition i believe is a dell diagnostics utility partition (82MB) and was not sure if i really needed this or could get rid of it.

Thanks for any info/help!

 

YGPM
Hopefully, should tell you everything you need to know, even things you already know, heh. At least in simplified form.

 

Thanks Ripper for your PM. I think i understand most of what your saying. And thanks for the reply, but i'm not sure how to make an extended partition.

In the installer program under the "prepare partitions" section of the install i have 4 devices listed. /dev/sda1, free space, /dev/sda3, /dev/sda5. the size of each of those are 82MB, ~10GB, ~146GB, and 2.6GB. when i click on the free space entry my only 2 options are to make a new partition, or undo changes to partition. If i click on new partition, i have options to set the size, location for the partition (beginning and end), Use as: (ex. exct3, swap, efi, fat32, ect...), and mount point. My thought is to set the size to 8-9GB (for the root file system), use as ext3 (it defaults to this) and mount point "/". this seems to work fine, but the left over space (1-2GB) that i wanted to use for the swap file shows up as "unusable" because that would then be the 5'th partition on the drive.

So do i need to get rid of one of the other partitions, the dell diagnostics utility partition, or the media direct partition to be able to have enough partitions for the root file system, the swap file, and Vista OS?

 

I really think you'd be better off without a swap partition, if you're running 2Gigs of memory, the difference with or without swap would be unnoticeable at times, at least, I certainly didn't notice on my desktop, with 2Gigs.
Also, I guess Extended partitions can only be done at the beginning or end of the drive, and you either have primary, and then extended section, and logical partitions within that section, or four primaries.

I'd leave it as is, and forgo the swap.
Right now, I can't think straight, but if anything, you might need to do a full format, since you may need to rearrange the partitions, to get the extended at the end of the drive.

 

Ok that sounds logical since this is just a trial go with Ubuntu i guess i won't bother with the swap partition.

 

You can use the guide in my signature to achieve what you want....