Ubuntu-accessibility Digest, Vol 56, Issue 6 - To Michael Cross

[Maurice McCarthy]

On 31 July 2010 14:26, Michael Cross <michaelrcross66 at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> I plan to install Vinux 3 on a 1 TB hard drive. But, I would like the
> flexibility to have other distributions such as SuSe and Fedora on the
> drive also. How should I arrange my partitions to achieve this? I have
> read that /Home and /usr need to be in their own partition. So, do I
> need to have /Home in HDA1 and /usr in HDA2?
> I would also like to install Windows 7 in one of the partitions. Is
> their an install sequence. Should I install Windows 7 first?
> I am thinking two 1125 GB partitions for
> However, since there's a limit of four primary partitions, I may have to
> give up the idea of having Windows on the system. Having at least two
> other distributions lf Linux is more important to me than having Windows
> on this machine. I have a second machine for Windows anyway. I need some
> guidence on setting up partitions and how large they should be. How many
> HAD partitions and HDB partitions etc do I need and how big should they
> be?
> Any advice would be welcome.
> Michael Cross
>

I am not well experienced in Windows 7 and have not yet used Vinux,
but I shall try to give some help. Formerly you always had to install
Windows before Linux because Windows refuses to co-operate with Linux
but Linux recognises and co-operates with Windows. I believe this is
no longer the case but I am not sure.

Windows 7 will take 2 primary partitions, one for the boot files which
will be hidden from normal users and one for the operating system, but
all Linux systems will boot from so-called logical partitions. If you
use the Windows "system restore" you may need a third partition to
save the system restore files. I think this sometimes called the Data
partition.

The fourth partition may now become an extended partition. That is you
can create as many partitions inside this extended partition as you
like. Previously Windows would only boot from a primary partition but
I don't know if this is still the case.

On the linux systems, as you will be having many of them I would
certainly have a separate home partition to keep all your personal
data and files. But it will be simpler /not/ to have a separate usr
partition for each distribution. I am not sure of recommended
partition sizes but I shall try to find out. It may take a day or two.

Do you have 2 1TB hard disks or just one. The linux terms hda and hdb
usually refer to separate disks. There will also be the problem of
handling the different boot loaders correctly. Please make sure you
have a back up of all your personal files before starting all this as
disasters can happen.

Are you sighted, visually impaired or totally blind? Sorry to pry but
this may affect which tools to suggest. I think you need to sighted to
install Windows 7.

Good Luck
Maurice