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So I have a 320 GB hdd. It is currently partitioned as /, swap and /home with Linux Mint already installed. Their sizes are 30 GB for /, 6 GB for swap and the rest is for /home. How do I go about installing elementary?

  • I want to delete the /home partition of Linux Mint and keep only / and swap, just like the default installation. How do I do that? Will there be any problem?

  • If I install elementary will I need another swap or can it be shared by two different Linux OSes? What to do?

  • I also want a separate partition which will store my documents, songs and movies which will be accessible by both OSes. How do I do that?

  • It will be the first time I'll be dual booting. What are the disadvantages, if any?

  • If I need to upgrade any of the OS in future it won't be much trouble, right?

So guys please help me out here. :)

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  • The first suggestion I give is : back up data and proceed. Well, eOS is not a forum, but a Q&A site. Your question is too broad to answer. Atleast, you can open new question for last two questions ( 4 & 5).
    – Ravan
    Dec 7, 2015 at 1:58
  • @Ravan Yeah I thought about posting at reddit too. But figured it was support related and questions are linked so posted it here. Still would've been nice if you could answer the first three at least. :)
    – BRKsays
    Dec 7, 2015 at 5:08
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    For 2. No need to create separate swap, see here. 3. Create a partition in ntfs that can be used as common partition. sorry, I can't give info about 1.
    – Ravan
    Dec 7, 2015 at 6:27

1 Answer 1

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I tend to use gparted and set my drive up like this.

  • Partition 1, ext4, Linux Mint (100gb)
  • Partition 2, ext4, Elementary OS (100gb)
  • Partition 3, NTFS, Shared Data (100gb)
  • Partition 4, Swap (16gb (twice the ram size))

I then set partition 1 as the root /

You will not need two Swap Partitions as both install will use the same swap.

There really is not much of a disadvantage to dual booting, you just have to work with it. I recommend a separate partition for your data.

Adding another install in the future is not hard and won't give you much trouble. Here is what I do when adding another install.

  1. Backup your data partition (do all your data if you can)
  2. Delete your data partition
  3. Create two new partitions where your data partition was.
  4. Make your EXT4 partition attached with your Swap and make them extended.
  5. Use the other half as a NTFS data partition.

When installing another OS do not install grub. If you are installing Windows after you have installed Linux, have a live disk ready so that you can install Grub. Windows removes the Grub bootloader and installs its own, which you will have to replace.

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