Now I had to decide whether to use Wubi or create another
partition for Ubuntu. I chose the latter one.
My hdd has 640GB total storage. Current state of hdd is –
4 partitions
1. Dell
Utilities
2. System
Restore
3. Windows
7
4. Media
Structure that I needed:
1. Dell
utilities
2. System
Restore
3. Windows
7
4. Ubuntu
5. Media
Problem 1: An HDD can only have 4 primary partitions. To
create more than 4 partitions one primary partition has to be an extended partition
which can then house logical drives.
Problem 2: Windows 7 partition had 300GB space allocated with
only about 50GB being used. I needed to shrink it in order to create more space
in my Media partition.
So how to get past these hurdles? I could go for a fresh
install of windows and in the process of installing windows create the new
partition system. Well, this is what I would have done had I not used Ubuntu
before in VM's and not known about GParted. GParted is a superb application for
exactly what I needed to do. I was able to shrink the Windows partition
pretty easily but I couldn't get it to expand the Extended partition that
housed Media. Bummer. Since I had already backed up every single file from my
Media partition, I went ahead and deleted the partition. From the unallocated
space now created plus the part created from shrinking windows, I created
partition for Ubuntu and Media under one Extended Partition. Now I have exactly
the setup that I needed.
I installed Ubuntu 11.10 – Oneiric Ocelot. First thing that
I noted was the superfast boot up. Updates on experience using Ubuntu in some
other post.
