1

When I try to install Ubuntu Server on a 150GB NTFS partition that I have on my hard drive, the installation will not allow me to continue. It will only continue if I mount it the filesystem at /. When I do this I get a warning saying that "Mounting an existing filesystem at / is usually a bad idea, proceed only with caution." Why do I get this warning? Should I continue with the installation, and if I shouldn't continue, is there a way to install without mounting at /.

Brian E
  • 11
  • Are you completely sure that you are installing to the correct partition? – user535733 Feb 02 '20 at 20:41
  • 1
    In the link in the answer below, it is installing Ubuntu into a mounted loop file that is not formatted to NTFS but to ext4. So, by that answer, yes it is possible to install it. This is based on previous Ubuntu installations that used WUBI where Ubuntu was installed into a mounted loop file allowing you to have the OS itself installed into a "virtual" drive type first that fully supports the permissions that it needs to operate correctly. As for the installation of Ubuntu directly to NTFS it will not work. – Terrance Feb 02 '20 at 22:05

1 Answers1

0

Although you could install Ubuntu into NTFS partition now, but it could require more work than with just installing it into linux partition. Better choose manual disk configuration. Remove your ntfs partition, create new partition with a file system supported by Ubuntu, Ext4 for example and make it mounted to /. Also, leave some place for swap partition.
On my machine I have been using Ubuntu since March 2019 and I have the next disk usage picture:

$ df -h | grep -v snap
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.6G  3.7M  1.6G   1% /run
/dev/sda2       177G   92G   76G  55% /           <---------
tmpfs           7.8G  544M  7.3G   7% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sdb1       229G   36G  181G  17% /home          <------
tmpfs           1.6G  4.0K  1.6G   1% /run/user/130
tmpfs           1.6G  104K  1.6G   1% /run/user/1000

I don't know what you are going to do with your system. But if you want to use it only for short periods of time, I would recommend you to make your partition sizes as follow:
/ - 50 Gb
/home/ - 90 Gb, however, it depends on amount of RAM you have, number and weight of applications you consider to use
swap - residue

/home partition should no be formatted in case of further OS re-installation, so you will save your users' files. It's like a disk D: on Windows.

Gryu
  • 7,559
  • 9
  • 33
  • 52
  • Why did you write that Ubuntu can be installed on an NTFS partition? The linked Q&A clearly states that you can't, Everything else is not relevant. – Pilot6 Feb 02 '20 at 21:29
  • @Pilot6 Look at linked Q&A answer date and compare it with the newly added answer date. Time changes. That was true for 2011, but not now. Why shouldn't it be mentioned? – Gryu Feb 02 '20 at 21:32