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I would love to install all three aforementioned OSes for (not so) obvious reasons.
1. Windows 7 for Visual Studio (C# + .NET); one day maybe Photoshop
2. Manjaro for every other dev project
3. Ubuntu for leisure like movies or reddit browsing
I know it may sound weird, but i need separate environments for relax and work. I have overwhelming difficulties with focusing on tasks.
I don't need Ubuntu to be SSD-ish fast. It'd be nice if it only booted rapidly. I'd also like to designate ~8GB of RAM for swap partition on both GNU/Linuxes.
I already have pen drives with Ubuntu 16.04 Unity and Manjaro 16.08 KDE prepared, as well as working Windows 7 CD with key.
Now I have few questions for you:
1) How should I divide space on both physical disks to use their capabilities according to my needs? How much space for both /s, /homes? Can Manjaro and Ubuntu share /boot and swap?
2) What is the best order I should take to have the least complications possible?
3) Where to install bootloader and from which installation disk?
If you could add little technical explanation regarding questions 2 and 3 I would greatly appreciate it. I'd love to enrich my "Linux systems" knowledge and still don't quite understand boot process and why it's so difficult to have few OSes bootable at the same time. Additionally, if you could recommend me BIOS alternative for rEFIned, I'd love to use it to improve booting visual experience :)
Thanks in advance!
Janek

bowl
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  • Is hardware UEFI or BIOS? You cannot share /boot nor should try to share /home. But create shared data partition(s). At least one NTFS to share all three systems and perhaps an ext4 for Linux data. You can share swap unless attempting to hibernate, then you cannot. If not hibernating then you only need 2 or 3 GB for swap.http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation – oldfred Sep 13 '16 at 22:36
  • Hi, hardware is shipped with BIOS. Thanks for the link. I'll have a look. – bowl Sep 13 '16 at 22:44
  • Edit (actually too late): I've read it, but it does not answer questions 2 and 3. Still no idea what's best order of installation and how to maintain ability to boot into 3 – bowl Sep 13 '16 at 22:51
  • With BIOS you can then use both MBR. Install Windows on SSD first and install its boot loader to MBR of SSD. Since SSD is only 120GB, most if not all will need to be NTFS for Windows. While Windows will install in as little as 30GB, you need 30% free to have it work well and after updates, applications etc I find I need 100GB. Only if only occassionly used for one app may you get by with 50 or 60GB. Install Linux on sdb and install which ever you use the most last, so its boot loader is in the MBR of sdb. I might use gpt on HDD, but Windows requires MBR for BIOS boot. – oldfred Sep 13 '16 at 23:28
  • @oldfred, You want me to choose 'boot partition' (no /boot) for Windows on SSD and for Linuxes on HDD? Should not all three systems have shared bootloader? As I understood your comment: Install Windows with bootloader on SSD, then install less frequent Linux with BL on HDD and finally main Linux with BL on HDD. Should i specify BL place for every installation? – bowl Sep 14 '16 at 17:04
  • Big differences between UEFI and BIOS. With UEFI all systems boot from an ESP - efi system partition. With BIOS systems all boot from MBR which is too small to have entire boot info. Windows adds more boot info in the Windows boot partition or the NTFS with boot flag. Grub has extra info (core.img) right after MBR but before first partition. Grub can be on any MBR. Windows needs to be in MBR of same drive as install. – oldfred Sep 14 '16 at 17:27

1 Answers1

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I suggest that you might want to look into Type 1 Hypervisors if you want speed (aka Bare Metal Hypervisors) [I personally have not used this]

If you want to give up a bit of speed and go for convenience then look to Type 2 Hypervisors (aka Virtual Machines). This is great especially if you need two of them to run at the same time. You can make use of Shared Folders to transfer files.

Read more here: http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Virtualization-hypervisor-comparison-Type-1-vs-Type-2-hypervisors

Edit: I might not have fully answered your question but I personally am not a big fan of dual booting.

Timothy Wong
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  • OP said, " i need separate environments for relax and work. I have overwhelming difficulties with focusing on tasks." You answer is not helping them on their reason – Anwar Sep 14 '16 at 04:34