How should I use manual partition?

Question

Well , I'm just moving from Windows platform to Ubuntu and I'm stuck at how to use manual partition. I don't want to preserve any previous windows installation or previous data too. My Windows drives were as follows :

1. Local Drive C : [200 GB] (approx) : Contained Windows + Other Softwares
2. Local Drive D : [200 GB] (approx) : Contained my development stuff ( different projects in different folders with git init )
3. Local Drive E : [What's Left] : Games.

If I need to follow somewhat same scheme in Ubuntu Installation , how should I proceed?

Specs if needed : HDD [500GB] , RAM[4GB] , Processor[ Intel Core i3 2.5ghz ]

Answer 1

Read the whole question before doing anything.

NOTE: the following steps will delete all of your partitions, all of your previous data on your hard disk, everything! Do not proceed if you don't want that.

1. On the Something else screen (image below), highlight each of your partitions and click on the - minus sign. This will delete the partitions.

   

   You should be left with a big "free space". We'll now proceed to create 4 partitions. Here's what they are:

   • root partition: partition containing important Ubuntu files. This is like the "C" drive of Windows.
   • home partition: partition containing your user data. This is like the "C:\Users" folder of Windows. Yes, that "folder" is going to be on a partition of its own.
   • games partition: partition containing your games.
   • swap partition: an important partition for Linux that helps with memory/RAM.

2. Highlight the free space and click the + sign:

   • Pick 102400 for size (that's 100 GB)
   • Primary
   • Use as ext4
   • Mount point /

   That's the root partition.

3. Highlight the free space and click the + sign:

   • Pick 204800 for size (that's 200 GB)
   • Primary
   • Use as ext4
   • Mount point /home

   That's the home partition.

4. Highlight the free space and click the + sign:

   • Pick 200704 for size (that's 196 GB)
   • Primary
   • Use as ext4
   • Mount point /media/games

   That's the games partition.

5. Highlight the free space and click the + sign:

   • Don't pick anything for size. It'll use the remaining space. This should be 4 GB
   • Primary
   • Use as swap area

   That's the swap partition.

There's no "standard size" for a swap partition, but generally, people make the swap partition the same as RAM, that's why I've set it to 4 GB.

You can play around with the sizes before doing anything. I changed the root partition to 100 GB instead of the 200 GB you had for the C drive in Windows. That way, you have more space for Games, but you can switch the root back to 200 GB if you want, and leave 96 for Games if you don't have much. I just think that 200 for root is too much. The root partition contains the important files of Ubuntu and programs you install. Just remember that it will be touch (or a long process) if you choose your partitions now and then want to resize them later =/, so design wisely.

Answer 2

The Ubuntu installation uses the whole disk space available. So the first step for you would be to save your personal data from your HDD somewhere else.

Coming from windows you need to learn some new concepts for partitioning on linux.

• the whole system is organized in one folder. the root folder "/"
• different partitions would be integrated into the system with subfolders. like "/home" for all user data or "/games" for a special partition to contain games.

The next step is that you should learn to distinguish physical drives and virtual partitions with lvm .

The lvm manager can create you different virtual partitions within your physical hard drive. It has the advantage that the partitions can be changed later on.

these partitions will be conected to the folders with the "mount" command. you can lookup the organization of your partitions and where they are connected to your system in the file system in the "/etc/fstab" file and with the "df -m" command.

I hope that helped you somewhat.