How does this partitioning page work?

Question

I just dual installed Ubuntu 14.04 with Windows 7, using Wubi. It went pretty smoothly, but when my Ubuntu home screen came up and I opened the "Install Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS" icon, this screen came up:

partition screen

I have no idea what anything on this screen is for. I've search the web and I have found no information on what /dev/sda is, or what I am even supposed to be selecting. When I click "Install now", I get an error saying, "No root file system is defined. Please correct this from the partitioning menu."

Has anyone dealt with this screen before, who knows how to use it? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Are you sure you're using Wubi? Or are you trying for dual-boot? — muru, May 14 '15 at 01:51
I haven't used wubi in a long time but I don't think you used wubi the way you think you have. If you don't understand this screen, do nothing. Hit quit. You have the potential to destroy your Windows partitions. Please search the site for questions and answers about installing alongside Windows. — chaskes, May 14 '15 at 01:52
@muru Well I'm trying to dual-boot, using wubi. I thought that was the whole point of wubi. — Joe Morano, May 14 '15 at 01:56
Wubi != dual boot. Wubi technically resides inside the Windows partition, so partitioning is never involved. — muru, May 14 '15 at 01:59
Furthermore, WUBI has been dropped from Ubuntu since 13.04. It has several problems, so most people in the community advise against its use. — Rod Smith, May 14 '15 at 15:31

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 14 '15 at 01:56

/dev/sda is the first harddrive that ubuntu sees. ubundu, and by extension linux, sees hardisks as devices and name them sda, sdb and so on. sda1, sda2 are partitions within sda. sort of like now you can partition a hard disk into multiple disks in windows. (a 500GB disk into a C drive and D drive, for example.)

What this screen shows is that you have a 500GB harddisk, and it seems to be entire taken up by windows. also that you have a smaller 8GB disk that is named /dev/sdb. I am not sure what that is being used for.

I would recommend not touching /dev/sda at all. this is your windows stuff and whatever changes you make here will probably break windows.

You should google how to setup a dual boot windows ubuntu machine. I have never actually had to do that myself so I never really investigated that option.

How does this partitioning page work?

1 Answers1