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I'm trying to dual boot Ubuntu 14.04 onto my desktop that's currently running Win10. I've only dual booted on machines with a singular HDD years ago, but now I have a small SSD (for my Win10 OS and key programs) and a 1TB HDD (for all my data). The desktop also has 16GB of RAM.

So few questions on doing this:

  1. I've partitioned the last ~100GB on my HDD for Ubuntu. I'm going to use a shared partition for documents and such, so how much space should I give to root, home, and swap (and any other extra partitions)?

  2. Where should I put the bootloader? Should that go on /dev/sda (SSD) or /dev/sdb (HDD)?

  3. What happens if I ever want to clear Ubuntu from the drive or move it to a possible third hard drive?

danceNinja
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1 Answers1

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  1. I would say root~30GB, swap>16GB if you plan to hibernate, or 0 if you do not plan to, and the rest to /home.

  2. If Windows is with UEFI and you install Ubuntu correctly with UEFI, it will be placed in the EFI directory.

  3. You just do it (from live system) and set up accordingly the partitions in /etc/fstab and the bootloader (you might need to use boot-repair here if you have EFI)

dadexix86
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  • No, but with 16GB of RAM, It is highly unlikely that you will fill it up. – dadexix86 Apr 10 '16 at 15:27
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    I like to have 2GB of swap, just to have some. But it may never be used. If Windows drive is gpt partitioned then it must be UEFI. Note that with UEFI grub only installs its boot files into the ESP - efi system partition on drive sda. Best to also create ESP on every gpt drive for future use or copy of boot files. Gpt partitioning: http://askubuntu.com/questions/743095/how-to-prepare-a-disk-on-an-efi-based-pc-for-ubuntu and: http://askubuntu.com/questions/461394/how-to-partition-ssdhdd – oldfred Apr 10 '16 at 16:27
  • Just verified that my PC uses UEFI. Disk management shows 100MB on my SSD, sandwiched between my recovery partition and my C partition. So if I understand what dadexix86 and oldfred are saying, I'm supposed to use this partition for the new bootloader, wiping away the old one in the process (picking /dev/sdaX)? – danceNinja Apr 10 '16 at 21:38
  • No, you do not wipe anything. Just follow the right guide for the installation. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI – dadexix86 Apr 10 '16 at 21:39
  • So I can boot legacy or UEFI on my CD drive. Choosing the UEFI version lets me choose "/dev/sda" for installing the boot loader without issue. (I was loading from legacy before, which was my main issue there.) Desktop is now dual booted! – danceNinja Apr 12 '16 at 00:59
  • Great! :) it was easy, wasn't it? – dadexix86 Apr 12 '16 at 06:36
  • Yeah, it's just a bit nerve racking when doing stuff like this. Having an extra drive and the whole UEFI thing put a new spin on things for me. – danceNinja Apr 13 '16 at 22:55