hard disk partition issue

You've posted the question to the wrong Launchpad Answers section - this one is for the Launchpad Single Sign On service, not for Ubuntu (the correct section can be found at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/). Post there next time if you've got an Ubuntu-related question.

Anyway, I've noticed these strange things in your configuration.

1) The /dev/sda6 partition is mounted at /dos - I think you are using it to store your files, so the mount point should be given a more meaningful name, such as /files.
2) I think the swap partition (/dev/sda7) is too big - there are many different opinions regarding the optimal swap partition size, but it should be big at least the total size of your RAM and at most its double - I think 1.5 * RAM size will be fine. Also, a swap partition should not be mounted (Ubuntu activates the swap partitions it finds automatically; moreover, it makes no sense mounting a swap partition, since mounting is used only to access stored files and there are none in swap areas).

Therefore, I'm asking you:
1) Is the new name of the mount point for /dev/sda6 ("/files") OK for you?
2) What is the total amount of RAM installed in your computer, so I can choose the new dimension of the swap area accordingly?

On 10/25/2011 11:01 PM, Alessandro Menti wrote:
> the total amount of RAM installed in my computer is 1gb

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Miscategorized questions can be recategorized to the correct project. I'm doing that with this question, which should help you get an answer.

Most of the time, users who are not already experts at partitioning are best served by allowing Ubuntu's installer to partition automatically. (Users who are experts at partitioning are also often best served by using the automatic facility for partitioning.) Advice we give you is unlikely to be highly tailored to your specific situation (unless you give us an enormous amount of information about your needs), and is unlikely to reflect your personal preferences (which can really only develop in you alongside the technical skills that would enable you to partition without help, or without much help), which means that partitioning manually by following community (or other) advice is unlikely to be beneficial compared to just partitioning automatically. Ubuntu's installer can resize existing partitions and create the necessary partitions, and will take into account both the total size of the disk and the amount of free space on the partitions it is resizing, when doing this. Just don't tell it to use the whole disk, if you already have operating systems installed or non-Ubuntu partitions you want to keep--if you tell it to use the whole disk (rather than to resize the existing system and installing alongside it), then it will erase all existing partitions and the data they contain.

However, if you do want to partition manually, then no: The partitions you have specified are not adequate for installing Ubuntu, unless you are installing a Ubuntu is a highly customized way. The partition on which / is being mounted should be at least about 5 GiB large, and you should have a partition of type linux-swap. A reasonable guideline for the size of linux-swap is twice the amount of RAM you have in the system (in your case, 2 GiB), though on systems with little RAM, it should be more than this. (For example, on a system with 256 MiB of RAM, I would still create at least a 1 GiB swap and possibly larger.)

Your / partition, especially since you do not have a separate partition for /home (or /usr), would probably be better if it were *way* bigger than 5 GiB, such as 15 GiB as suggested at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements#Recommended_Minimum_System_Requirements.

Finally, if your disk is small or your processor is slow and that's why you're installing Maverick (which is currently still supported, but which is an old version), you might consider installing a newer version of an official derivative of Ubuntu that uses a desktop environment that is less demanding on resources, such as Xubuntu or (even less demanding) Lubuntu. Please note that Lubuntu was not an *official* derivative until Ubuntu 11.10 (though many people have used older versions of it without major problems). If you are installing Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat because you want the Ubuntu Classic interface, you should be aware that this interface was still provided in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (select "Ubuntu Classic" or "Ubuntu Classic (no effects)" as your session type on the login screen -- in that version, the drop-down menu for this appears in the horizontal bar at the bottom of the login screen after you have specified your username, while you are being prompted for your password. In Ubuntu 11.10, you can install the gnome-session-fallback package and get the GNOME Classic interface (also called GNOME Fallback) that looks, feels, and functions much like Ubuntu Classic, but which is not quite the same.

For more information on manual partitioning, please see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition.

@Eliah: I think Asad has just numbered the partitions he has made (the dot is not a decimal point), therefore his current disk layout is:
-/dev/sda1 - 20 GiB (Ubuntu)
-/dev/sda5 - 20 GiB (Windows)
-/dev/sda6 - 20 GiB (documents?)
-/dev/sda7 - 20 GiB (swap space)
and he has got enough space on his hard drive - no need to use an Ubuntu derivative in that case.
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Before proceeding, make sure you have backed up all your files.

To resize the partition, boot from an Ubuntu CD or DVD. When prompted, choose to "Run Ubuntu now" instead of installing it. Go to System->Partition Editor.

Follow the instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition/ResizingPartition to resize your swap partition to 2 GiB, making sure that the space freed is left BEFORE the swap partition (while resizing the swap partition, first change the "Size" value, then make sure that the field named "Free space following" is set to 0, otherwise set it to 0 and the "Free space preceding" should increase automatically). The free space can now be given to another partition: since I think you are using the /dev/sda6 one to store all your data, your best bet would be assigning all the remaining free space to it. To do this, resize the /dev/sda6 partition; in the "Resize/Move" dialog, increase the partition size until both the "Free space" values are set to 0.

After resizing the partitions, click on "Apply" to begin the process - it may take up to some hours. When the operations have finished, you may reboot as normal.

To change the mount point for the /dev/sda6 partitions, boot into your normal Ubuntu installation, then open a Terminal and type the following commands (enter your password if required):

sudo umount /dos
sudo mv /dos /files
gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

The last command will open the /etc/fstab file in gedit. It will contain many lines similar to these:
UUID=2460F9A760F9803A /dos ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0
Find the one that contains "/dos" in the second column and change "/dos" to "/files", leaving the rest unchanged, then save and quit.

In the Terminal, type the following command:
sudo mount /files

This should mount the hard drive again at the new mount point.

Ah, I see. You're right. There is, for example, a space between "1." and "20 GB".

The partitions that have been created are sufficiently large then. As Alessandro Menti and I have said, though, you should have a swap partition.