Fresh install Kubuntu 13.10: how best to partition the HD

[Felix Miata]

On 2013-11-07 15:48 (GMT+1100) Basil Chupin composed:

> Felix Miata wrote:

>> There is no openSUSE 13.10 now, next week, or most likely ever:
>> https://en.opensuse.org/Roadmap :-p

> The number 13.10 is the same as 13.1000 or 13.1000000000 or
> 13.100000000000000000000000000000.

True. But, a numeral in a particular context is not always a number. Among 
distro names, numerals are only part of a label, having no value for the 
arithmetic, algebraic or other mathematical context that makes 13.10 
equivalent to 13.1. The openSUSE product is not openSUSE 13.10, but openSUSE 
13.1, just like Kubuntu 13.10 is not Kubuntu 13.1, and Fedora 19 is not 
Fedora 19.0.

>> Actually EXT2 access is available after installing an appropriate
>> driver, according to reports I've read. It may be this has been
>> extended to EXT3 and possibly EXT4 as well, but I don't use Windows
>> enough to bother taking the risk.

> So you don't use Windows enough to be able to make a considered comment,
> right?

wrong. You misread.

> Mentioning ext2 and ext3 and anything else is only a means of confusing
> the issue.

> Using ext2 is now ancient practice as is using ext3.

And yet 100% of my dozens of Linux native boot partitions are in fact EXT2, 
0% EXT3, and 0% EXT4. Boot partitions are little used, have no material need 
for journaling to waste their limited space, house a limited number of files 
of which a number are rather large and the primary space consumers, and can 
be accessed by live Linux media 10 or more years old, for maximum 
accessibility and compatibility. The EXT4 drivers used for installation and 
operation are perfectly content using them. Newer doesn't necessarily equate 
to better.

> I have found that using the partitioner in oS it formats the
> partitions perfectly.

Depends on your definition of "perfectly". Not all formatting options are 
necessarily available in the formatting processes available for partitions 
formatted during installation. Formatting in advance can provide access to 
100% of formatting options for a given filesystem type.

> Why I am suggesting for Bas to use the SystemRescueCD is that the oS
> partitioner does not do a good NTFS format (as far as I remember, but
> correct me if I am wrong) but GParted does do NTFS.

Why do you suggest any partitioner do duty as formatter? What I wrote was 
merely a response to the implication from what you wrote that formatting by a 
partitioner might be advisable at any time. That any partitioner may also do 
partitioning duty is not a rationale for mixing up the concepts of 
partitioning with filesystem creation. One necessarily precedes the other, 
while the latter need not follow directly.

> But you also said that you don't have much experience with Windows.

I have plenty, going back well over two decades. Having no compelling need to 
use it continuously is not the same as not using it.

> Windows copies its files onto the HDD. It then unarchives the files. It
> then installs them. If there is insufficient space to do all this
> Windows aborts

Hence the reason to make the C: primary partition larger than the limited 
space required to house Windows' booting files.

> - and you have to go back to square one.

Another overstatement. Starting Windows installation on a multiboot system is 
usually not square one. When it is, it's usually a consequence of lack of 
experience and/or planning.
-- 
"The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant
words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/