Hello everyone!!

Once again I am thrilled and impressed with AntiX 8.5. The OS recognized the BroadCom 4727 wireless OOTB, I used Ceni to connect to my home network and I was able fix my touchpad issues through posts on this forum. I am also loving ROX more and more.

I am going to practice hd partioning on my desktop. Carving out an hd isn't really 2nd nature to me yet. This is my daughter's new pc for college and I don't want to screw it up. I'm glad that she recognizes the usefulness and safety of linux and wanted me to put AntiX on her pc.
Hmm. Does she really need to go to college? __{{emoticon}}__

Well, any advice or cautions for setting up this dual boot with Win 7 will be greatly appreciated. TIA.

Dave

I don't know Windows7 but the earlier versions wouldn't recognize Linux and so should be installed first and then Linux.
So the basic advice would be that, boot the live-CD and use Gparted to partition the disc (apart from the partition reserved for Windows, create an 8-10 GB partition for antiX - just in case you eventually want to install something big like KDE one day - and another for its /home folder). Then install Windows first and antiX second so GRUB will see Windows and create an entry for both operating systems.

Thanks, secipolla.


I know that I havn't done this right in the past, but I am not really sure about creating multiple partitions and naming them. I usually create one and don't subdivide. To do it correctly do I just create one and call it" /" and then the second call it" /home" ? I will also put in a small swap partition. I was planning on using about 50 GB. btw.

Dave

Cuttlefish wrote: I know that I havn't done this right in the past, but I am not really sure about creating multiple partitions and naming them. I usually create one and don't subdivide. To do it correctly do I just create one and call it" /" and then the second call it" /home" ? I will also put in a small swap partition. I was planning on using about 50 GB. btw.

Yes, create a swap partition as well.
The mount points (/, /home etc.) are created during the installation (in antiX's installer you choose the partitions for /, /home and swap). What you can do if you like is to name the partitions by setting their labels in Gparted. You can name them, for example,"Win7","antiX","antiX home".
The swap volume will depend on how much RAM you have and what the system will be used for (I think that besides compiling or the like, the most RAM hungry thing is multi-media edition). Also it's a desktop, right? Because if it's a laptop I think you must have at least the same amount of RAM as swap for it to be able to suspend to disk.
So you would have to create a NTFS partition for Windows (20 GB will do?). One ext4 for antiX (antiX uses less than 2 GB when first installed but if you have space you could give it up to 8 GB and if it's going to be kept 'for ever' then you could even give it 10 GB). If you don't think that eventually KDE or GNOME will be installed then 6-7 GB will be plenty.
Then comes antiX /home. Either you create and put it in a NTFS partition so Windows will see it as well or you create and put it in another ext4 partition.
antiX should mount and work fine with /home in a NTFS partition but I'm not sure it will do.

Oh, and get antiX ISO from
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so you have the latest upgraded/bug-fixed release.

I forgot something.
You can have up to four primary partitions per disk. So you create the Windows one as a primary/logical partition, then you create an 'extended' partition, then you create the partitions for antiX, swap and antiX's /home inside this extended partition.
This way you'll have only two primary partitions of the four you're allowed to have.

Thanks

I probably need to give you more info. This is a laptop and it has a 500 gb hd. Win 7 is already installed. I glad you told me about the"bug fixed iso". I was going to ask you about that. I think I was doing ok until the extended partition part. I know that I have seen it in gparted before but never really grasped the significance.

Since Win 7 is already there, ( I don't want to mess with it if I dont' have to.) will I just call antiX my extended partition?

Dave

This seems like a good how to.


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Basically you need to shrink your windows partition the larger data one usually called /D, and put antiX on the newly created drive.

If Windows has all the disk formatted then you should open up space for antiX by shrinking the partition from within Windows itself. For us to have a better picture, you can boot antiX live-CD, open Gparted and take a screenshot.

After you have opened space for antiX, you'll create in this space an extended partition. like
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.
Inside this partition you'll create another partition and format it as linux-swap (its size will depend on how much RAM the laptop has: if it has 2GB RAM, create a 2GB swap - make sure it's equal or a bit more than the amount of RAM). Then you'll create another partition for antiX (which you will use to install"/" from antiX's installer) and format it as ext4. Then you create yet another partition occupying the remaining space in the extended partition and format it either as ext4 or NTFS (if you want Windows to see it)(this partition you'll select to install /home in antiX's installer).
Then you write down the partition names (sda4, sda5, sda6 etc.) so you know which one you will point the installer to install the system on and which one you will point it to install /home on.

Comprehensive tutorial at:
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Fuller documentation at:
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(see 'Documentation' at the left column)

Okay guys. Thank you for your responses. I've read them both along with your reading list. On my experimental box I've carved out an approximately 50 GB with a root partition of about 10, a home of about 36 GB.

As far a swap goes, is it best to be before the root partiton or after the home partition. (I hope I'm making sense?) I always have my swap partition at the end. ie. all the way to the right when looking at the Gparted visual ribbon. It seems that in dedoimedo the swap is before sda6. Is there any reason one is better than the other?

I'm not sure how to add screen shots to this post...sorry. __{{emoticon}}__

Thanks again anti and secipolla.

Dave

Figured it out...cool!

secipolla,

I've re-read your 4th post and it appears that my swap should be first, then / then home. Not the way I have it in my screenshot. Am I correct?

Swap location is no big deal as far as I know Cuttlefish. You can have swap at the beginning,middle,or end of drive. It should not matter as far as a performance issue goes.

rokytnjl,
Thanks... I think feel confident that I can do this. I will download anti's"fixed" version tonight and install after a good night's sleep.

I appreciate everyone's patience.

Dave

As roky said, it doesn't matter much.
If you had more than one drive you could put swap in a different drive than the system and that would help in case it was used.
Also since your drive is quite big, your swap is relatively close to the system partition and that helps too.

If you eventually need to create more partitions you can expand the extended one (/dev/sda3) and include the new one inside. You can even delete swap, expand sda3 and then create swap inside it (no need to do this now, only in case you need to create more partitions).

But where's Windows there?

-edit- I see, this is only test. So when you go 'for real' create swap inside the extended partition too.

Well things seemed to be going ok. I resized my Win7 partition and created space for antiX, but I did something wrong. It appears that I can't assign an extended partition to the 60 GB I carved out. See my screenshot. Is this a fixable situation? Or will I have to do something radical?

Uh ohh.

Thanks,
Dave

I tried clicking on Device, but it seems that if I create a new partition I will wipe out Win7 and I don't want to do that...atleast not yet. __{{emoticon}}__

I'm guessing that all those windows partitions are primary. Could this be what's giving me the problem?