Other cool apps you might want to try: Basket - Great program for organizing ideas. F-Spot - Photo organizer. Swiftfox - optimized versions of Firefox for specific processors. Hugin - for making panoramas.
Eh, why not at the beginning? I find that to be easier.
Windows likes to be first, Linux doesn't care as much. Mainly it would be because of a pre-loaded OS. Windows it already there. I don't know if anyone noticed this but Vista has one very useful feature. You can resize a Vista partition, using the disk management tool. Right click "My Computer" select "manage" go to the "disk management" section. Select the Vista partition, right click and select resize. You can carve out a nice chunk for you Linux install. This is very nice for a laptop that comes with at pre-loaded copy of Vista.
When I actually undergo the process of installing Ubuntu, I'm going to reformat the drive. My current XP install is taking up most of the drive. The only reason I want to dual boot is Steam. So theoretically, a 30 gig partition should be enough for my games. I just need to know what the optimal partition setup would be.
When I actually undergo the process of installing Ubuntu, I'm going to reformat the drive. My current XP install is taking up most of the drive. The only reason I want to dual boot is Steam. So theoretically, a 30 gig partition should be enough for my games. I just need to know what the optimal partition setup would be.
30 Gigs!? That's a lot for Steam only. Then again, I don't know how many games you have on it... Anyways, I would put my swap partition first, double my RAM, so 2 gigs in my case, then a primary partition, another primary, (perhaps a third if you want to play with more linux distro's), then the extended partition, then a logical partition for /home and then big partitions for multimedia.
I have a 500 GB (that's about 460 real GBs) partitioned up into 2 gigs Swap, 20 gig Ubuntu, another partition for another distro, and then 4 big Logical partitions, Gienah, Marfak, Segin and Talitha. Segin and Talitha are still empty, but I am still in the process of moving stuff from my other hard drive to this main one. The other is a 160 gig 8 NTFS partition Windows hard drive. Probably gonna turn that into a small NTFS XP partition with some backup space for Linux and XP.
Have I said anything useful here? Also, naming your partitions = helpful if you plan to use a partition on both Windows and Linux. That way you don't have to remember, oh yes sda8 = h:. Or was that g:?
Honestly? I got confused in the first paragraph. Mostly because I'm trying to combine/compare what you just said with what everyone else has been recommending. You have XP as your last partition [from how I understand it] and everyone else has been telling me to put Windows first.
For the record, I am easily confused, so this may just be my brain refusing to work.
I've copied everything that matters onto my laptop [music, pictures, etc.] and have begun wit a fresh install of XP on the 30 gig partition. as soon as that part is mostly done and the Ubuntu install begins . . . I'll be comin here to ask the obligitory "Well, WTF do I do now?"
I've copied everything that matters onto my laptop [music, pictures, etc.] and have begun wit a fresh install of XP on the 30 gig partition. as soon as that part is mostly done and the Ubuntu install begins . . . I'll be comin here to ask the obligitory "Well, WTF do I do now?"
Mostly internet browsing, game playing and the occasional document writing. I also download what few TV shows that are worth a damn with torrents and use my computer like my own personal TiVo. I would hook up my actual TV to the computer but I prefer my slightly smaller, but beautiful none the less, 19" widescreen LCD.
Mostly internet browsing, game playing and the occasional document writing. I also download what few TV shows that are worth a damn with torrents and use my computer like my own personal TiVo. I would hook up my actual TV to the computer but I prefer my slightly smaller, but beautiful none the less, 19" widescreen LCD.
Just to come back to this. The only slight advantage of putting it at the end is if you ever want to increase its size (highly unlikely) theres a good chance you will have left a few gigs of unpartitioned space in front of it. where as at the start of the disc it will probably be up against the next partition. A small thing but hey.
On a side note: would anyone be interested in me doing an in depth "Everything you might want to think about before/while/after switching to linux" podcast series? I want to break into this podcasting thing and could probably go on at length.
Honestly? I got confused in the first paragraph. Mostly because I'm trying to combine/compare what you just said with what everyone else has been recommending. You have XP as your last partition [from how I understand it] and everyone else has been telling me to put Windows first.
For the record, I am easily confused, so this may just be my brain refusing to work.
Ehehe, yeah I thought it could be confusing. No, I have 2 hard drives, one is 100% Windows with NTFS partitions, and the other is my Linux partition, with Ext3 partitions.
Just to come back to this. The only slight advantage of putting it at the end is if you ever want to increase its size (highly unlikely) theres a good chance you will have left a few gigs of unpartitioned space in front of it. where as at the start of the disc it will probably be up against the next partition. A small thing but hey.
True, but as you said, increasing your swaps size is highly unlikely. Even more so if you just made your swap twice your RAM. But the most outer edge of a hard drive has slower read times then the most inner part.
@ ClassicDMS, don't forget to tell us your progress and impressions.
If rotational velocity is constant and radius increases then shouldn't actual velocity increase? Put more simply, the outside has to be moving faster as it is going further in one turn. How does that slow read times? Doesn't matter anyway. If your swap is getting that much action then something is seriously wrong.
If rotational velocity is constant and radius increases then shouldn't actual velocity increase? Put more simply, the outside has to be moving faster as it is going further in one turn. How does that slow read times? Doesn't matter anyway. If your swap is getting that much action then something is seriously wrong.
Reading speed depends on the number of bits the head passes over in x time. I should find that image which can explain it, for I cannot with sections and stuff. But yes, true dat something's wrong if you swap gets used too much.
Something is wrong if your swap gets used in an sufficient quantity. In modern PCs with sufficient memory, it's mostly a fail-safe to keep all your processes running in case something goes overboard and starts using all the RAM. No matter what OS you are running, you should have some sort of visual meter on screen that shows RAM usage. If usage gets crazy high, you should be finding out what is using so much, and close some apps.
In Linux you have to be careful checking how much RAM you are using because of buffers and cache. Linux is very smart. If you have 1 gig of ram, but your apps are only using less than that, Linux will use the rest of the memory for buffers and cache. If the RAM is there, why not use it to make your computer faster? Of course, if you need to use that memory for something else, Linux will just throw the cache away. So when reading how much memory is free on your Linux box, remember to ignore memory used for buffers/cache. Here is an example.
fscott@scott-desktop:~$ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1009 962 47 0 96 395 -/+ buffers/cache: 470 539 According to this only 47MB of my 1 gig of RAM is completely free. Oh noes! However, if you look more carefully you will see that about 470MB are actually being used for buffers/cache. So in terms of applications running, I actually have 539MB of RAM free. That's more than half. Nothing to worry about.
nine@Ronin:~$ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1010 992 18 0 219 462 -/+ buffers/cache: 310 700 Why is my gig of RAM bigger then yours Scott?
Interesting info on Linux memory usage. I use that Gnome system monitor thing and the memory is always pretty full, about 90-ish%. In three color layers, Dark green, green, very light green. Dark green = Programs, and is the normal green then the amount of cache (light green) used?
Interesting info on Linux memory usage. I use that Gnome system monitor thing and the memory is always pretty full, about 90-ish%. In three color layers, Dark green, green, very light green. Dark green = Programs, and is the normal green then the amount of cache (light green) used?
the light green is the cache. Right-click on the monitor and choose properties, and all will be revealed. I use the same monitor.
Like what? I'm kind of waiting here at the create partition screen to know why it might, in the future, matter to me. What might cause me to want one over the other?
Like what? I'm kind of waiting here at the create partition screen to know why it might, in the future, matter to me. What might cause me to want one over the other?
Well, there are many different partition systems. The partition system that you have to know about is the one used by PCs. Basically the way it works is you can only have four primary partitions per disk. If you need to have more than four partitions, you need to make logical partitions.
So let's say you have a 400 gig drive and you want 3 100 gig partitions and two 50 gig partitions. You make four primary 100 gig partitions, but that final 100 gig partition is split into two 50 gig logical partitions. You can get more details on teh Internets.
Ahhh, I see. Sorry if I seem overly cautious but I want this process to off without any real issues. The quicker I learn/get accustomed to the new-ness, the better.
Ok, problem. Finished the install, rebooted and select my OS. It says the kernel is loading or w/e and then it's black screen. Any input as to wtf just happened?
*doodles a small image* Pink = primary partition Blue = extended partition. This is afaik just a primary partition but is able to hold logical partitions. Yellow = logical partition. An extended partition is needed to put these in. This is my knowledge on partitioning. 3 pink, one blue with at least 7 possible yellows. You can probably stuff a lot more yellow in blue, but meh, I don't know that.
Of course I could be pretty wrong with a few things, but this is how I've always partitioned my hard drives and I seem to be doing something right for it works.
@ Classic, does it give any errors? What is the output?
Comments
Basket - Great program for organizing ideas.
F-Spot - Photo organizer.
Swiftfox - optimized versions of Firefox for specific processors.
Hugin - for making panoramas.
I have a 500 GB (that's about 460 real GBs) partitioned up into 2 gigs Swap, 20 gig Ubuntu, another partition for another distro, and then 4 big Logical partitions, Gienah, Marfak, Segin and Talitha. Segin and Talitha are still empty, but I am still in the process of moving stuff from my other hard drive to this main one. The other is a 160 gig 8 NTFS partition Windows hard drive. Probably gonna turn that into a small NTFS XP partition with some backup space for Linux and XP.
Have I said anything useful here? Also, naming your partitions = helpful if you plan to use a partition on both Windows and Linux. That way you don't have to remember, oh yes sda8 = h:. Or was that g:?
For the record, I am easily confused, so this may just be my brain refusing to work.
On a side note: would anyone be interested in me doing an in depth "Everything you might want to think about before/while/after switching to linux" podcast series? I want to break into this podcasting thing and could probably go on at length.
@ ClassicDMS, don't forget to tell us your progress and impressions.
Doesn't matter anyway. If your swap is getting that much action then something is seriously wrong.
In Linux you have to be careful checking how much RAM you are using because of buffers and cache. Linux is very smart. If you have 1 gig of ram, but your apps are only using less than that, Linux will use the rest of the memory for buffers and cache. If the RAM is there, why not use it to make your computer faster? Of course, if you need to use that memory for something else, Linux will just throw the cache away. So when reading how much memory is free on your Linux box, remember to ignore memory used for buffers/cache. Here is an example.
fscott@scott-desktop:~$ free -mtotal used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1009 962 47 0 96 395
-/+ buffers/cache: 470 539
According to this only 47MB of my 1 gig of RAM is completely free. Oh noes! However, if you look more carefully you will see that about 470MB are actually being used for buffers/cache. So in terms of applications running, I actually have 539MB of RAM free. That's more than half. Nothing to worry about.
nine@Ronin:~$ free -m
Why is my gig of RAM bigger then yours Scott?total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1010 992 18 0 219 462
-/+ buffers/cache: 310 700
Interesting info on Linux memory usage. I use that Gnome system monitor thing and the memory is always pretty full, about 90-ish%. In three color layers, Dark green, green, very light green. Dark green = Programs, and is the normal green then the amount of cache (light green) used?
So let's say you have a 400 gig drive and you want 3 100 gig partitions and two 50 gig partitions. You make four primary 100 gig partitions, but that final 100 gig partition is split into two 50 gig logical partitions. You can get more details on teh Internets.
Pink = primary partition
Blue = extended partition. This is afaik just a primary partition but is able to hold logical partitions.
Yellow = logical partition. An extended partition is needed to put these in.
This is my knowledge on partitioning. 3 pink, one blue with at least 7 possible yellows. You can probably stuff a lot more yellow in blue, but meh, I don't know that.
Of course I could be pretty wrong with a few things, but this is how I've always partitioned my hard drives and I seem to be doing something right for it works.
@ Classic, does it give any errors? What is the output?