PCTech Forums

I have recently purchased a new computer with a 160 GB SSD and a 250 GB HDD. I want to be able to dual boot windows 7 and ubuntu with this new computer in the most efficient way using both drives. Could somebody lay out the best way to partition each drive and where to install each OS, along with corresponding locations for games/programs/documents/etc. Does anyone have a setup that works great for them on a similar machine?

I'll open with a "If i were you" scenario.... someone else may surely have a different opinion but heres my thoughts.

Ive duel booted ubuntu with xp and rather enjoyed it. Ive since went back to just xp for no real reason at all. You will find that only a select few games will run on linux, even with the best of emulators so you will be wanting more hdd space on windows for games. I would put the 2 OS's on each its own drive, Win7 on the larger of the 2. Partition it at will but you really only need one. Ubuntu uses a conjunction of 3 partitions and its best to let it size them as it deems necessary. The installer offers a "auto allocate" feature thats just lovely. Thats the route i would take. Install windows first, linux second. Doing so will allow linux to see the windows installation and install a boot loader to allow you to choose between operating systems reliably. Programs and games directorys should all be left to default locations with both systems. Just some random things to consider.