help with dual booting and partitioning!

hey guys, i just got a new elitebook and i want to dual boot it with windows 7 and either opensuse or ubuntu/mint, whichever i end up liking more ...
so the thing is, first of all, how should i partition my hd? i have a 250 gb hd, and i'm thinking something like giving each os 20-40 gb and then let the rest be a data partition. but should i also make a swap partition? i have 4 gb ram right now, so does that mean i should go with a 4 gb swap? or is that not necessary? also, what's the best way to partition my hd?
also, so, i should partition and then install win7 and then linux? sorry, i'm kind of a beginner with these things and don't want to mess up. thanks!

 

Install Windows 7 first, before any linux OS. It makes getting the bootloader up and running a LOT easier. Windows bootloaders prefer to be either the only OS or Windows OSes only. In the installer you'll be able to set the partitions and choose which to install to. If you get to the point where it's installing, you missed it. Just do a hard shut down (hold down the power button) and start over. It's a waste of time to let it go any farther. Shrinking the OS after install is a real PITA.

Windows 7 itself is 15+ GB, so give it at least 30-40 to play it safe. I have mine sitting in a 100GB partition with installed programs to the same partition, and it's pretty much 2/3 empty. You need to reinstall any programs for windows anytime you reinstall, so have your Win partition be your program partition as well.

Linux, doesn't need much space at all. You can get away with 10-15GB for the OS, but make sure to make your swap at least as large your RAM to be able to hibernate and just generally be more stable. You'll never miss it. As for partitioning out the root drives, you might separate out /home, but leave the rest to default. Not many people need to separate /boot, /var, etc. If you plan to have all your data on a separate partition, you don't even need to split out /home, since that's really just a MyDocs analog.

hope that helps.

Oh, and Windows will create it's own mini-recovery partition (like 100mb i think) that has memtest and other stuff. Don't worry about it since you have no control over it (for the most part)

 

here's a couple of guides u can also look at for more info: good luck!
How to Dual Boot Windows 7 & Ubuntu Linux – Install & Run Ubuntu on Windows | PCs Place
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

 

I found this thread helpful when I was looking into it:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/linux-compatibility-software/385118-recommended-partitioning.html

 

thanks for the help! so i ended up partitioning and finished installing windows 7, but then i tried to boot from live cds for linux mint 9 and opensuse 11.3 and mint had problems displaying things, while opensuse kept freezing, and i was unable to select options and do stuff like check the CD ... am i doing something wrong, or is there some sort of incompatibility?

 

Hmm, are you sure the CD iso images that you downloaded from the website are not corrupted? I'd check using the md5sum, just ask if you need help with that. Also, curiously, what are your hardware specifications like? And what model do you have?

 

That's actually what I was wondering, but I haven't gotten around to checking them. I've deleted the original files, though - is it possible to just check the file on the CD? Also, I'm not sure how to use md5sum, could you give me a brief rundown?
I read on HP EliteBook 8440p [Linux Laptop Wiki] that there seems to be some problems, maybe?
My model has core i5 520m, 4 gb ram (i added 2 gigs myself), and nvidia nvs 3100m. Should I give more details?
Thanks!!

 

Hmm, it should work well. But try re-downloading the files, see here for md5sum information.

 

ok, cool, thanks, i'll try it out when i get home
should i still try the live cd, or should i just get the installation dvd?

 

well if you are a beginner and/or are wanting to try out a couple of different distros i would recommend burning a disk of each distro u want to try. You can just download the iso file from the site and when you boot up your cd you can run it directly from the cd w/o it affecting your system. if you decide to install it..u just install from the exact same cd.. simple enough yea? good luck with linux and have fun

 

A Live-CD is also an installation CD in most cases.
The Live-CD offers you the chance to just test the CD without installing it, when finished testing, you can use the same CD to also install that linux distro.

Important when burning an ISO image to a CD/DVD, is to keep a low burning rate as to avoid errors as much as possible.
So, choose a 2* or 4* burn speed.
Programs like free ImageBurn offer the option to check the CD after burning the ISO image for any errors.

Also, download and install HashTab (from beeblebrox.org) to check MD5, SHA-1 etc. sums in Windows.
It's very convenient.

Just install the program, right-click on the downloaded ISO file, check 'Properties', then check the new 'File Hashes' tab.
The sum will automatically be calculated. It doesn't get any easier.
Example;


HashTab website link.