dual-booting my notebook

I should be ordering my new laptop in the next month or so -- probably a Clevo P150HM from a boutique builder, with 2 HDDs (external optical). I've been planning for awhile that I want to dual-boot Windows 7 and Mint on this machine, but what I can't figure out the best way to do it.

My basic goal is to get the best speed and performance from the drives that I can, but I also like things very organized. I've been doing alot of web research, and am possibly even more confused on how to do this than when I started, lol. I had 2 plans, and now have no idea which is better, or if there is a 3rd (or 4th) option that I should be considering.


Plan #1: Keep the OS's separate from the programs.
Partition drive 1 and use it for the OS installs of both Win7 and Mint, and put all the programs on drive 2. My rationale, was that if an OS tanked, then all my programs were on a separate drive, so I wouldn't have to reinstall them. Problem is (as most of you probably know), some programs write to the Windows registry, and I would have to resinstall them with a fresh OS install anyway. Another detail that I overlooked is that any programs that I do install, have to be installed under a particular OS. In otherwords, my install of GIMP under Win7, won't work under Mint, and vice versa. Essentially meaning that I'd have to potentially install many of my programs twice and also partition drive 2 into "Linux Programs" and "Windows Programs". Blah.

Plan #2: One drive for Windows, the other for Linux.
Each drive would also be partitioned for OS and Programs. However, then I started reading about pagefiles and how it's better if you can put it on a drive separate from the OS, and in it's own partition. Should I even think about putting a Windows pagefile on a drive with Linux OS/Programs, and vice versa? I have also read that basically the more you partition a drive, the slower it gets b/c it has to essentially "split" it's speed across multiple areas of the drive. So, even though more partitions helps things to be more organized, you are basically slowing the drive down. I've also read that Linux can get a little finicky with exactly where it installs itself on a drive. Sigh.


Here are some other considerations/details that are probably important:

1. I don't think I run any software that is ridculously intensive (no CAD, etc), but I'm a big multi-tasker. Many programs open at once consuming alot of resources.

2. Drive contents need to be very organized.

3. I abhor how Windows worms it's way into everything on the drive that it is installed on. For example, both Vista and Win7 are picky about permissions/copy speeds with subfolders located in the sacred location of "C:\Program Files. For this reason, I want all programs to be installed to a separate location -- not in the folder and ideally not on the same drive (C: ). Whether or not that means they are put onto a different partition of the same drive, or onto a separate drive altogether, is irrelevant as along as my other goals are met.

4. I'm a little bit of a gamer. Mostly WoW, Oblivion, Trine, Torchlight; looking forward to new releases this year of each of the latter 3. I like to play max settings, at the highest resolution possible.

5. I'm looking at 500GB drives, possibly SSD hybrids, but am open to other options. Cost will be an issue, though.

6. Planning on Win7 HP and 8gb of ram.

7. All data will be on a separate external drive. Is there an issue with this? What about reading the same data files with both Windows and Linux? My goal is to use Linux when at all possible, and only use Windows when I must. However, I do use proprietary software for work (academia), that requires me to use both IE and MS Office.

8. All drives will be backed up via a disk-imaging program to a separate network drive. Again, potential issues with this?

I'd be hugely appreciative to anyone that can can give me some input on this, or if there is a more appropriate place for me to try to get answers to these questions. My knowledge-level is probably intermediate. No programming knowledge. I also have no experience with Linux, as of yet, just a desire to learn...and get out under the thumb of M$.

Thanks!

 

Rule of thumb if you're somewhat new to Linux then install Windows first then Linux, it's easier that way as the Linux Grub (bootloader) will integrate nicely with the Windows bootloader. To manage your Windows bootloader use EasyBCD.

My suggestion would be to install Windows 7 on one drive and Linux on the other. If you only have 1 drive Linux easily partitions on an existing Windows partition AND can even coexist within a Windows partition or you can create a separate Linux partition.

Oh and congratulations on choosing Mint 11, my favorite distro to this day, Clem does a great job.

 

The best way is installing Windows first then installing Linux, as already said before.

Normally you don't have to partition into "Linux programs" (unless you want to go overboard and separate /usr - where most Linux apps live - but I have not seen this done in quite a while, it was commonplace when big hard drives were not the norm).

With 8 GB RAM it is unlikely you will need a swap file at all, unless you're planning to use hibernation. Putting it on a fast hard drive might be even a waste of space.

I don't know if the slowdown matters so much for desktop systems. Maybe for high-performance servers/workstations, where heavy disk I/O is standard.

Here are some other considerations/details that are probably important:

Shouldn't be a problem with either Windows or Linux. In fact, with Linux, one can keep track of all applications installed through package management - helps avoiding the cruft that remains after uninstalling a program.

As far as I can see, this shouldn't be a problem, most currently programs can cope with being installed in another partition.

No, as long as you use a filesystem that is supported in both OSes - (un)fortunately, that means NTFS or FAT32.

None if your disk-imaging app supports Linux filesystems (EXT4, ReiserFS etc...).

 

Sorry for the delay in my reply. Thanks for the input from the both of you.

It looks like then that the best thing for me to do is put Windows onto 1 HDD, and Linux on the other. The Win7 drive will be partitioned, and I'll let Linux do it's own thing on the second drive.

Do either of you seeing the 500GB hybrid drives making a substantial enough difference in this scenario to warrant the higher cost over a regular drive?

Thanks again for your time and input.