Installing Ububtu

[alan c]

Frank Fahey wrote:
> I have two drives on my computer with the first (160 GB) in three
> partitions with WXP in the first partition.  My second drive has 80
> GB and I would like some help to use only about 20 GB for the
> install of Ubuntu and the rest for daily backup and imaging.  My
> first pass was with a 40 GB partition for the BK-IMG and left the
> rest for Ubuntu.  It took all the unused space and made the
> partition (Fat 32) and reduced it with only 1.7 MB left.  I have
> tried to have only unused space on the drive, but that does not
> work.  I tried a 20 GB partition and unused the rest but Ubuntu
> used all 80 GB.  I even used Partition Magic ver 8 and provided a
> 18 GB for Linux ext3 and 2 GB for the swap file.  I could not
> figure how to get it to work.  I also tried the Gnome Partitioning
> software under the administrator.  No problem with using GRUB as a
> dual boot manager.

I find that gparted live cd is very easy to use and to see what is 
going on, you might like to try it.

With the 80G drive, I would create a 60G partition at the beginning 
(note 1) of the drive and format it fat32 - for intended use by the 
backup facility.
Then also make a 20G partition at the end of the drive, but do not 
format it. This will be your target for ubuntu installer, it will be 
seen as (the largest) 'unused' space on the drive.

Note 1:  I do not think it makes much difference - end or beginning, 
but for me it would be intuitively easier to visualise if linux was at 
the end of the drive :-)

good luck
-- 
alan cocks
Kubuntu user#10391