Need help partitioning before installing PCLOS

[joseph_1802]

Hi everyone,
I recently bought a new laptop (Dell) with a 1 Tb HDD. It came with Win7 pre-installed and, since I need it because of work, I don't have intentions to get rid of it.
The laptop came with two partitions: one called OS (970 Gb, more or less, where Win7 is installed) and another called Recovery.
I'd like to install PCLOS in this laptop, but I'm not sure how to make the partitions (I mean, I know the process, but I'm not sure how many I should make, and which size and type). My idea is to have the Win7, the Recovery, another to share files between win and PCLOS (like documents, videos, pics, etc) and then install PCLOS in another one.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[agmg]

Well, I was in the same situation when I first bought my Toshiba laptop...

First thing I did was wipe the whole disk (including the Recovery partition) and reinstall Win7 from a typical OEM disk using my laptop's serial number. I downloaded all needed drivers and software from Toshiba's website and installed just what I needed to get the laptop working with Win7. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm not saying that you should do the same but think about it...

1. If you ever have to reinstall Win7 (and you will, believe me) you will have to use the Recovery option. This option, in most cases, will wipe the whole disk and bring it back to the state it was when you first bought your laptop. Not very practical, right? In your laptop's manual you will find more about the recovery procedure. I suggest you read it.
2. Most preinstalled Windows come bundled with a bunch of programs provided by the laptop's manufacturer. Some of them are useful, some of them are just wasting resources. Are you sure you need ALL this stuff? Why not choose what you need and download it from the manufacturer's website?

Having said that, and if you decide to keep Win7 as it is, the first thing you must do is make room in your disk by shrinking the Win7 partition. There are many linux partitioning programs you can use and PCLinuxOS has one of the best (diskdrake) but I suggest that you do it from within Win7 since you are dealing with NTFS.

Go to Control Panel -> System & Security -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

With this tool you can manage your partitions. Right click on the Win7 and select "Shrink volume"
This will allow you to reduce its size to your desired amount (which depends on how many programs you are planning to install).

You should create one big partition (i.e. "Data") where you will store all your files. This can be used as PCLinuxOS' /home partition too.

PCLinuxOS needs at least 3 partitions: one called root (/) where the OS and all the apps will be installed, one for swap (/swap - virtual memory in Win7) which I like to have it equal to my system's RAM, and one more for your configuration and personal files called /home. As I mentioned before, this partition can be shared with Win7 but if you prefer you can separate it. During installation, PCLinuxOS will create folders inside /home such as Documents, Music, Videos etc.

20GB for / (root) should be more than enough. I have 15GB, a lots of programs installed and only half of it is used.
Swap should be equal to your system's RAM. Mine is set at 4GB. This particular partition can also be used by other Linux installations if you plan to do any in the future...
You should use ext4 as the filesystem of your root partition and NTFS for your /home if you decide to share it with Win7 (otherwise it should be ext4)

That's it for now... Hope I gave a good head start... Come back if you have more questions, I'll be glad to help...

[Yankee]

You need to backup your Windows partition if not done.
Be sure you have 2 verified copies of that.

http://www.livecd.com/

The above is a little costly but so was your new computer.
Fast, reliable, easy, verified, etc..   The Windows backup
in the Pro version is so slow...

Have a good one.


FF

[joseph_1802]

Thanks a lot. I was familiar with the partitioning process already, but your explanation was more than clear.
You're more than right about all the unnecessary stuff that comes already installed from the manufacturer. I've got rid of most of the stuff that I wouldn't need from that, so I'm not planning to re-install Win7 for a while. I downloaded all the proper drivers though, since I had to reinstall many Wins a bunch of times.
I guess I'll go for the partitions that you suggested, sharing a "Data" (NTFS) one between win and PCLOS.
Now, considering that I already have two (and I guess both are "primary"), plus the "/" partition and the SWAP one that I'll have to create, could "Data" be "primary" too, or would it have to be "extended"? That's something that I'm still not really sure about.

[agmg]

I guess I'll go for the partitions that you suggested, sharing a "Data" (NTFS) one between win and PCLOS.
Now, considering that I already have two (and I guess both are "primary"), plus the "/" partition and the SWAP one that I'll have to create, could "Data" be "primary" too, or would it have to be "extended"? That's something that I'm still not really sure about.

You can see from the disk management tool what kind of partitions already exist in your drive.

You can have at most 4 primary partitions or 3 primary and 1 extended partition. You can only have one extended partition which can contain many logical ones.

Assuming that the two partitions you already have are primary, you can create two more primary ones but you wouldn't have all the partitions needed to install PCLinuxOS. So, you should create one more primary for your data and one last extended containing two logical ones, one for / and one for /swap.

[Yankee]

Just one thought about the size of the Windows OS partition.
The last time I talked to the tech's at WindowsBBS, if,
you installed every .NETFramework they have as well
as every MS add-on recommended the partition would need
40 GB, so a 50 GB Windows partition was an agreeable size.
Just for an idea of size, perhaps 75-100 GB would be OK then when
data, music, some movies might need to go there, in the main
Windows partition.

The Linux partition(s) after that are up to you.

regards,


FF

[Phil]

Interesting read.

Just one thing to add, clonezilla. I backed up the whole install of a new pc, and the separate partitions. Then I obliterated the disk.

Reading this:

Backup the whole disk
Do as agmg says and do a windows install from a disk and apply drivers etc
Then install PCLOS
Then do more clonezilla backups

Clonezilla is a specialist linux distro to clone partitions/disks, its easy, it has saved me many times over. I did a write up in Tips & Tricks, plenty elsewhere.
You need a live disk/usb rather than the server edition in the repos.

[joseph_1802]

Thanks again for all the replies. It definitely gave me a huge panorama of the steps I have to follow.
One last thing though... Considering that my laptop has a Core i7 processor, with 8GB ram, which is the best kernel or version for it? The PAE one?

[agmg]

It's the only choice if you want to use all your memory