7/28/2014

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

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How to use manual partitioning during installation?

I'd like to see the full How-To on how to use manual partitioning during Ubuntu installation. The existing guides (at least those I found here)
cover only automatic part and leave untouched the manual part (or extremely short and contain no pictures).
I'd like to cover such situations:
If you have blank disk
If your disk contains Windows installed
If your disk contains other systems
If it is GPT, RAID or LVM
partitioning

system-installation

edited May 14 at 7:38

asked Sep 9 '13 at 10:00

Danatela
4 ,0 1 3

13

42

4 Answers

If you have blank disk

1. Boot into Ubuntu Installation media. This can be either CD or USB stick.
2. Start the installation. Proceed to Step 4 and choose "Something else":

3. You will see your disk as /dev/sda or /dev/mapper/pdc_* (RAID case, * means that your
letters are different from ours)
Click "New Partition Table..." You will see that you have free space on your disk now:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

4. (Optional) Create partition for swap. Swap is the partition for keeping unneeded memory
pages, like Windows swap. Also it can be used for hibernation.
Select free space and click

Set parameters like on the picture below:

Notice that you should set swap size more than you have physical memory in order to use
hibernation. Also, you can place it in the end of disk, but thus it will be slow.
5. Create partition for / (root fs). This is the filesystem that contains your kernel, boot files,
system files, command-line utilities, libraries, system-wide configuration files and logs.
Select free space and click

Set parameters like on the picture below:

10 20 GiB should be enough

6. Create partition for /home. This is the filesystem for your user's files: documents, images,
music and videos. It's much more like Users folder in Windows.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

You can do this just like in step 5 and even choose other fs type (though I recommend use ext4
instead of reiserfs. Simply, the first is much more flexible and the second is quicker)
7. (Optional) Create separate partitions for /boot, /tmp and /var. Set their size according to
your needs:
/boot should be 100 500 MiB
/var and /tmp should be > 5 GiB

8. If you doubt about which device for boot loader installation to choose, leave it default. It would
be set by installer. But sometimes it does mistakes. Let me guide you how to deal with it:
If you use only one hard disk, select or leave /dev/sda intact.
If you use more than one hard disk with no RAID, select the one from which your system
does boot. You can also select other disk and set BIOS to boot from it.
If you have RAID from which your system starts, it will be /dev/mapper/...
Be sure t hat you selec t ent i re di sk, not a si ngle part i t i on!
After all, you should see your disk like this:

That's all! You can now click

edited May 14 at 6:00

Install Now

and proceed to the installation.

answered Sep 9 '13 at 13:55
Danatela
4 ,0 1 3

13

42

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

If you have disk that contains Windows installed

1. Boot from Ubuntu Installation media.
2. Unmount any mounted drives if they exist.
3. Proceed to Step 4. Choose "Something else" and click

Continue

You will see partition table. It will look like this:

4. Free some space for Ubuntu:

Select the Windows drive (not the loader!). It should be the biggest drive in the map.
Click Change... button. Reduce Windows' partition to 60% of it's size. Notice that you
should remain some free space on it (8 20 GiB should be enough).

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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If you want, you can delete some partitions. This is done by clicking
delet e Wi ndows part i t i on!
And ~40 GiB should be kept for Ubuntu. Click

OK

and

button. Do not

to write changes on disk.

Continue

5. Now your partition table should look like this:

6. Now, you can proceed with steps 4 7 of part about blank installation. Notice that swap will be
placed on logical partition. This doesn't matter, in any case it will work perfect.
edited May 14 at 6:04

answered Sep 9 '13 at 14:56

Danatela
4 ,0 1 3

13

42

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

Do any of the following help you? (sorry, I don't have enough rep to comment this).
Now suppose that we are going to install Ubuntu 11.04 and at first of the installation process we
will meet Allocate drive space screen (the most important step in the installation process). In
Allocate drive space screen Select Something else to partition your disk drive manually.
The Next screen shows sda1 partition for Windows Xp and free space, Now we are going to install
Ubuntu 11.04 so we need to create / partition and Swap.
C reat e / P art i t i on :
Select free space and press on Add button.
Ubuntu 11.04 requires about 4.4 GB, So we should type a value more than 4.4 GB. Here in my case
I put 6000 MB i.e 6 GB.
From "Use as" I selected Ext4 journalling file system.
From "Mount point" I selected /.
Press Add button to create / partition.
C reat e Swap:
In the previous screen select free space, and press Add button.
Swap doesn't need much space. In my case I put 500 MB
From "Use as" select Swap area
No need to Mount point.
Click Ok button to create swap.
Inst all:
Now we have /, partition, and swap so we are ready to install.
To start installation process press Install now button.
Manual partitioning on Ubuntu installation
For installing Windows on a separate partition, this should be fairly self explanatory from the "Install
Ubuntu alongside them" option, however you may come across the following bug.
Your existing partition (Windows) is on the left, Ubuntu is on the right. That's the standard order
when shrinking one partition to create another for dual-booting.
Installing Ubuntu with Windows installed on a partition
edited Sep 9 '13 at 14:03

answered Sep 9 '13 at 10:54

Tom
89

Welcome to Ask Ubuntu! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the
essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. Danatela Sep 9 '13 at 12:35
I agree, and I am more than happy to bring in the textual parts of the links, however copying print screens from
the attached resources seems somewhat superfluous (and they probably supply the "better" answer). Tom Sep 9
'13 at 13:11

If you have

md

RAID

I will not cover how to create mdadm arrays here. There is a lot of articles around the Internet.
However, there is one major problem: Ubiquity installer doesn't account for the arrays created in
the live session, so you'll probably get unbootable system after installation on such array.
1. Create the setup like mine:
$ sudo fdisk -l

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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How to use manual partitioning during installation? - Ask Ubuntu

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes

...
Device Boot
Start
/dev/sda1
2048
/dev/sda2
156299264
/dev/sda3 * 311556096

End
156299263
311556095
312580095

Blocks
78148608
77628416
512000

Id
83
7
83

System
Linux
HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

...
Device Boot
/dev/sdb1

Start
2048

End
156301311

Blocks
78149632

Id System
83 Linux

Disk /dev/md0: 160.0 GB, 160048349184 bytes

...
Disk /dev/md0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

As you can guess, I created /dev/md0 mdadm array from /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1. It's empty
now. Let's install something on it.
2. Create partitions on /dev/md0 as you like:

Import ant : Install /boot onto one of partition outside the array because GRUB doesn't
support mdadm. In my case, it's /dev/sda3. If you want more quick booting of your system, it
should be placed at the beginning of the disk.
3. Install Ubuntu. Click

Continue testing

. Or reboot and see initramfs prompt

4. Now, you have to chroot into installed system and install mdadm:
sudo mount /dev/md0p6 /mnt
sudo mount /dev/md0p5 /mnt/home
sudo mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/boot
for d in /dev /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount --bind $d /mnd$d; done
chroot /mnt
apt-get install mdadm

Installing mdadm should fix booting problem.

answered May 14 at 7:36
Danatela
4 ,0 1 3

13

42

that is what i need begueradj May 30 at 5:57

http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation/343370#343370

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