I have Windows 10 on a HDD. I just installed an SSD I had lying around. I'd like to load Ubuntu or Mint on the SSD and have a dual boot system with W10. I did dual boot Mint on this PC when it was running W8 a year or two ago when everyone was talking about Mint. Is there any special considerations I need to take into account? Should I put home on the SSD or HDD? I hear stories of SSDs wearing out with a lot of writing. I wouldn't be doing massive amounts of writing. I'm thinking of not having a swap file. Mint never got close to 8GB. The SSD is 120GB. What would be a good partition size for /? I thought I heard SSD do better with larger partitions. I'm new to SSDs.
Dual Boot W10/Linux
- Thread starter hatt
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Many differing opinions out there on this. The good thing is that Linux file systems are more SSD friendly than Windows. Less stuff going on in the background you don't know about or can't control.
The drawbacks of SSDs are large file transfers. Depending on the SSdrive, transfers of large files (sometimes as small as 4GB) are slower on SSD than HDD. If you have archived/stored data (or torrents) that doesn't get accessed often, that would be best to be kept on HDD.
As for partitioning, you will want separate system (15GB min per ubuntu recommendations) and /home partitions as a minimum with a small swap if you don't think you need it (no swap isn't a great idea). This allows you to update, upgrade, or clean install a Linux distro without losing program/settings data for most applications. The question becomes do you just want 3 partitions with the bulk of the drive under /home and call it good or do you want another partition for data that is application independent (documents, videos, music, torrents, etc.)? Since you have an HDD, that stuff is probably better suited for the HDD in an NTFS format so that you can access all that data from either windows or linux.
Good luck.
The drawbacks of SSDs are large file transfers. Depending on the SSdrive, transfers of large files (sometimes as small as 4GB) are slower on SSD than HDD. If you have archived/stored data (or torrents) that doesn't get accessed often, that would be best to be kept on HDD.
As for partitioning, you will want separate system (15GB min per ubuntu recommendations) and /home partitions as a minimum with a small swap if you don't think you need it (no swap isn't a great idea). This allows you to update, upgrade, or clean install a Linux distro without losing program/settings data for most applications. The question becomes do you just want 3 partitions with the bulk of the drive under /home and call it good or do you want another partition for data that is application independent (documents, videos, music, torrents, etc.)? Since you have an HDD, that stuff is probably better suited for the HDD in an NTFS format so that you can access all that data from either windows or linux.
Good luck.
I installed it last night in less time than the last Window 10 update I had to wait around for. I used 35GB for / and the rest for home. I guess I should have set aside a little for swap. Added one later will let me play around with ubuntu, which is the whole point.
Originally Posted By: hatt
I installed it last night in less time than the last Window 10 update I had to wait around for. I used 35GB for / and the rest for home. I guess I should have set aside a little for swap. Added one later will let me play around with ubuntu, which is the whole point.
The key with linux is you really need to dive in. If you just toy around with it occasionally, it just isn't going to work out. It really is a lot like learning a new language. Taking classes now and then isn't going to cut it, you gotta submerse yourself in the culture to really learn it. There are so many support sources for linux now days that you can figure out how to do anything on your own. It is just done differently in linux.
Good luck.
I installed it last night in less time than the last Window 10 update I had to wait around for. I used 35GB for / and the rest for home. I guess I should have set aside a little for swap. Added one later will let me play around with ubuntu, which is the whole point.
The key with linux is you really need to dive in. If you just toy around with it occasionally, it just isn't going to work out. It really is a lot like learning a new language. Taking classes now and then isn't going to cut it, you gotta submerse yourself in the culture to really learn it. There are so many support sources for linux now days that you can figure out how to do anything on your own. It is just done differently in linux.
Good luck.
Why dual boot? Get a VM program and just put linux on a vm, and run it that way.
You can hose it and restore it in two seconds, snapshots, all kinds of stuff.
You can hose it and restore it in two seconds, snapshots, all kinds of stuff.
You can even do it for free with virtualbox by oracle. It is almost as good as VMware workstation, but not quite. Sometimes if you look on ebay people sell workstation licenses for like 20 or 40 dollars.
I was doing some mac training and put a mac vm on my windows desktop at home, also had a linux one and a windows server one.
I was doing some mac training and put a mac vm on my windows desktop at home, also had a linux one and a windows server one.
Originally Posted By: hatt
I see you can install Windows 10 on ubuntu using Virtualbox. I wonder how well that works.
Depends on how many cores you throw at it, how much ram you throw at it, and the speed of the virtual disk.
My pc here has 8 cores, 32gb ram, and a SSD and it runs fine. You can allocate whatever resources that you want to the vm.
I usually give a vm 2 cores, 8gb ram and that runs fine.
I see you can install Windows 10 on ubuntu using Virtualbox. I wonder how well that works.
Depends on how many cores you throw at it, how much ram you throw at it, and the speed of the virtual disk.
My pc here has 8 cores, 32gb ram, and a SSD and it runs fine. You can allocate whatever resources that you want to the vm.
I usually give a vm 2 cores, 8gb ram and that runs fine.
If this is your first Linux, I'd go the VirtualBox route and see if you like it.
As others have suggested, you can give 1/4 to 1/2 your cores and memory to the VM and see how you like it.
You can take snapshots, etc. That way, if you need to go back, you can restore the snapshot.
If you don't like it, you can delete the VM.
As others have suggested, you can give 1/4 to 1/2 your cores and memory to the VM and see how you like it.
You can take snapshots, etc. That way, if you need to go back, you can restore the snapshot.
If you don't like it, you can delete the VM.
Just make sure you take the extra step of installing Virtualbox's "Guest Additions" else your guest OS (in this case, a Linux distribution; but the problem would likely be worse with Windows or Mac) may not be able to detect and use Virtualbox's 3D acceleration for video; and most OS's these days require fancy whiz-bang graphics capabilities in order to work even half decently. Some notable exceptions would be Linux distributions that use a low-spec desktop like XFCE that will perform fine. Linux Mint's MATE and XFCE versions would be appropriate in this case. Their main version, Cinnamon, would perform best with Guest Additions all set up.
You'll have to install some stuff along with your Virtualbox's installation as well as inside your guest OS. Advise here if you could use a walkthrough for a specific Linux distribution.
You'll have to install some stuff along with your Virtualbox's installation as well as inside your guest OS. Advise here if you could use a walkthrough for a specific Linux distribution.
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