Managing Partitions During Installation with SSD and HDD - /, /home, and /boot

[SharKCS11]

Hello!

 

I've just installed Windows on by new build and want to dual-boot with Kubuntu 17.04. I've actually installed this exact combination on two other computers before, but this time I have a 240GB SSD that I'd like to use for booting and commonly used apps. I've already partitioned it so that there's about 75GB unallocated space left.

What is the best way to manage the partitions? I usually just set up swap, "/", and "/home". I was thinking of putting "/" on the SSD and "/home" on the 1TB hard drive; will this let Kubuntu boot up quickly like Windows does?

Also, I've never specified a "/boot" partition before. Is that necessary for this kind of a setup? I'm somewhat of a beginner at this so forgive me if any of these questions don't make sense ...

 

Thanks in advance!

[SCHISCHKA]

the only partition you need to separate is /home because then you can reinstall and not loose your data.

If you have your own applications not from the repos like oracle's java, android studio etc. then you can also benefit from a separate partition for /opt or where ever you choose to install them.

I no longer use a swap partition, I think the next ubuntu will be switching to swap file. swap files are easier to manage.

I dont see any reason to put /boot on a seperate partition unless you install / on a mdadm RAID0 array.

[Wild Penquin]

Yes, a separate /boot stems from the era, when BIOSes and/or bootloaders could not address the whole disk. They needed the stage2 (or 3, don't remember / it depends of the details and terminology of any certain bootloader) of the bootloader remain below certain address. Currently, a separate /boot is mostly useless.

 

Also, if you think you do not need to back up data in /home or want to manage it yourself (move it elsewhere if a reinstall is required) you might want to not make a separate /home. That way the free space is easier to manage (since you do not need free space separately for both / and /home).

[SharKCS11]

On 5/14/2017 at 8:38 PM, SCHISCHKA said:

the only partition you need to separate is /home because then you can reinstall and not loose your data.

This is what I ended up doing and it's working fine (booting up quickly too) . Didn't mess with /boot. Thanks guys.

[vorticalbox]

5 hours ago, SharKCS11 said:

This is what I ended up doing and it's working fine (booting up quickly too) . Didn't mess with /boot. Thanks guys.

did it work ok for you? Last time I put my home on another it would just "forget" and make a new one with none of my files in.

 

I currently just created symbolic links in my home to my second drive which is working fine. 

[SharKCS11]

27 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

did it work ok for you? Last time I put my home on another it would just "forget" and make a new one with none of my files in.

 

I currently just created symbolic links in my home to my second drive which is working fine. 

Yeah, I haven't had a problem with it yet, aside from the fact that the file system is completely separate from Windows (can't recognize Ext4). The files don't disappear or anything. I might try to make a separate NTFS partition for my music files, which I'd like to access from both OS's.

[vorticalbox]

17 minutes ago, SharKCS11 said:

Yeah, I haven't had a problem with it yet, aside from the fact that the file system is completely separate from Windows (can't recognize Ext4). The files don't disappear or anything. I might try to make a separate NTFS partition for my music files, which I'd like to access from both OS's.

you can install drivers to access ex4 on windows. I think I'll keep my links. Don't break what isn't broken.