Installing Ubuntu on a Toshiba laptop with Windows 8

[Liam Proven]

On 7 October 2013 20:14, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
> Which is why I came here seeking help.  The partition figures I posted came
> from the Ubuntu installer screen.  Earlier when I had Ubuntu running from
> the live dvd I looked at it with gpartd and all the partitions I listed
> where displayed next to each other across the top of the screen.
>
> My goal is to leave Windows 8 on the disk, not setup and unactivated so if I
> need it in the future I could just set it up.  Maybe that is not even
> possible, I couldn't find any info about that by googling, but then I am a
> poor googler.

OK. Well, it's a 64-bit machine with EFI, we can tell that. And the
fact that it has 5 primary partitions means it /can't/ be a standard
MBR-partitioned hard disk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#Disk_partitioning

MBR is the old PC and DOS partitioning scheme. It is the one with the
4-primaries limit.

So I think it must be GPT format, although one generally only sees
that on disks over 2TB in size.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

With GPT you can have as many partitions as you want.

So, first question. Boot off the Live DVD, pick "try" not "install."

Now, look inside those partitions. What's in the root directories?

There are 5 - as I read it:

/dev/sda1      ntfs      ~1GB

/dev/sda2      efi       1/4 GB *leave this alone - vitally important*

/dev/sda3      ntfs      ~ 1/8 GB - Windows System Reserved I think

/dev/sda4      ntfs      ~5 3/4 GB - that's your C drive

/dev/sda5      ntfs      ~11 GB - that's interesting. What's in there? Anything?

I would suggest, depending on what's in there, this:

If #5 is empty, remove it. Shrink #4 down so that it is about 50% full.

In the remaining space, make new primaries for Ubuntu. I'd suggest:

16GB ext4 for "/" i.e. root

On the end, one about the same size as your physical RAM for swap.

And in between, give all the remaining space to /home.

Because it's GPT - I am guessing this because it seems to have 5 on
its already and it's a modern EFI PC laptop - then all the
old-fashioned primary/extended/secondary/logical stuff goes in the
bin. It's just primaries all the way on GPT.



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