Question

[Richard Rudnick]

On Wed, 2008-02-27 at 17:55 -0600, Alex Barrantes wrote

> I am a new user on linux, I burn my
> CDs with the  Ubuntu 7.10
> installer,  I downloaded it from
> your web site. 
> My computer is a Toshiba Satellite
> M205-S4806, with Windows Vista Home
> Premiun. 
> I want to divide my hard drive in 3
> partitions, the first part to keep
> the Windows Vista already
> installed, the second part to
> install Ubuntu and the third
> one for save files which I can open
> or write when I using
> both operating systems. 
> Of course that when I start my
> computer that may have an option to
> select any of the 2 operating
> systems. 
> I have heard with debian installer
> you can get a hard disk partition
> without formatting or deleting
> existing information, but has its
> risks. Question: Is Ubuntu
> installer that I have fallen allows
> this operation? 
>   
> Thanks
> 
> 
> 

Two things: First, it's a good idea to resize the vista partition from
inside of vista, I think it's in disk management under
accessories->system tools or some such. Ubuntu does have an ntfs
partition shrinker, though.

Second, you'll want 4 partitions: 1 for vista, one for ubuntu, one for
swap and the 4th for saved files.  Swap should be about 2x your memory,
up to around 2gb max. It's used for swapping out unused but running
programs, and optimizes memory usage.