Will be installing either Mint or Pop_OS on a new laptop which has a 512gb SSD. Will keep Windows for gaming, at least for now, with the games installed on an external HD. But otherwise, this is to experiment with living in Linux.
I understand that I can unallocate HD space from Windows in order to make room for the LInux OS, leaving at least 25 or 30gb for the Linux OS itself.
Do I then extend that space further, so to speak, to allow for any other programs I might install as well as for data? Do I create a third partition for data that will be shared between the two OS?
What’s a reasonable breakdown?
e.g.
Windows 100gb; Linux 400gb or
Win 100gb; Linux 30gb; Data (NTFS) 370gb?
Windows: 150GB. Linux: 100GB. The rest: Data.
And don’t forget to disable hybrid shut down in Windows.
What about swap space? Is that still a thing?
Zram is really neat.
That is a good option as well, but for experienced users only and only if you have a lot of RAM and a UPS (or on a laptop with a working battery). Otherwise, power failiures mess that thing up.
You can make a swap file on the main partition where Linux is installed, that’s not a problem.
Nice,. thank you. And ntfs for the data format is what I’ve understood to use
NTFS is the standard for Windows. Nowadays Linux can handle reading/writing NTFS pretty well, but you should probably use the very established ext4 or maybe btrfs for its partition.
For Linux, if you’re a beginner, EXT4. Experienced users - BTRFS.
And ntfs-3g is even better at writing on NTFS than Windows is. There are fragmentation examples online, Windows makes a fragmented mess while ntfs-3g takes great care regarding fragmentation. Plus reads/writes a lot faster than Windows does.
Yep, use NTFS. You can access it in both Windows and Linux. You’ll need to install ntfs-3g in Linux. It comes bundled in most mainstream distros, but just in case.