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I have tried installing ubuntu alongside windows 7. For that i resized my c drive and that resulted in a new unallocated volume. How should i partition this and how do i install ubuntu in it. I am stuck at the disk selection stage.

screenshot of this step

Byte Commander
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Nevin Baiju
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1 Answers1

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In your unallocated space, you need an ext4 partition to install, and a swap partition that's at least the same size as your RAM.

I'd recommend partitioning 8GB as swap, and using the rest as the main partition. When you create partitions on the selection screen, set your main partition to mount as /, and your swap to mount as swap.

Edit: that last part is probably left over from when I used old computers with 1 GB of ram. Kudos to ByteCommander for clearing up how much swap is actually needed.

SuperSluether
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  • The needed swap depends on the installed RAM and the planned usage of the system. If RAM is big enough, you don't need much swap, just a bit. I actually never used more than 2GB swap, but that depends on what one does. If you use memory-intensive applications, better allocate more swap. – Byte Commander Nov 04 '15 at 17:33
  • I guess I don't have much experience with swap. I just always thought it was good practice to have swap the same size as ram. – SuperSluether Nov 04 '15 at 18:12
  • I recommend you to read https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq and http://askubuntu.com/questions/49109/i-have-16gb-ram-do-i-need-32gb-swap for more information about deciding on swap size. – Byte Commander Nov 04 '15 at 18:40
  • Thanks. I have 10GB of swap with 8GB of ram, but it doesn't use nearly as much after changing the swappiness down to 10. I have noticed that my ram fills up, but most of it is cached data, according to the free command. – SuperSluether Nov 04 '15 at 18:57
  • http://www.linuxatemyram.com/ – Byte Commander Nov 04 '15 at 19:04
  • Yeah, I understand how cached data works. In reality I only "use" half of my ram. I'm still not sure if a ramdisk is counted as used or cached, but that's beyond the scope of this question. – SuperSluether Nov 04 '15 at 19:07