Ubuntu – Dual-boot Ubuntu / Windows 10 on SSD + HDD

dual-bootpartitioningssdwindows 10

Hi there, newbie here !

I'm going to have a 256 GB SSD very soon (mSATA 850 EVO) to accompany my 1 TB HDD (7.2k TPM) on a laptop, and I want to take advantage of this to format the HDD (with obvious backup of the data I want to keep).

This is the first time I will have Linux on my own PC (mostly for studies in computer science), the first time I try Windows 10, that I have a SSD, and my first dual boot !

So I took a long time reading tutorials, documentation and such, and came up with something like this to set all my things up :

SSD :

  • Windows OS and most (probably all) programs and games : NTFS (210 GB)
  • Ubuntu
    • / : ext4 (20 GB)
    • /usr : ext4 (15 GB)
    • /boot/efi : ext4 (250 MB)

HDD :

  • Data (music, vids, photos, movies, documents) : NTFS (700 GB)
  • AltPrograms (if SSD runs out of space) : NTFS (100 GB)
  • Ubuntu
    • swap : none (8 GB)
    • /var : ext4 (3 GB)
    • /tmp : ext4 (8 GB)
    • /home : ext4 (50 GB)

Basically, what I want to do here is drastically increase my system's performance and take care of my SSD for maximum longevity (limit the write cycles). That is why I put swap, /var, /tmp, and /home on the HDD.

I also would like to hear your advice on having the swap in RAM (mine is 8GB big) and /home having symbolic links for Pictures, Documents, Videos, Music leading to the Data (NTFS) partition, because some people say it's nice, some that it's bad and should instead use a /media/transferthingies (NTFS) partition to exchange files between the two OS.

Oh and about the /boot/efi partition, do I really need it ?

About the installation process, I believe it is something like :

  1. Reserve space on SSD and HDD with Ubuntu CD for NTFS and ext4 partitions
  2. Install Windows 10 with Windows CD
  3. Install Ubuntu with Ubuntu CD
  4. Make symbolic links in /home to my Data (NTFS) partition

Anything I missed ? I hope I didn't, this post is already long…

Thanks for at least reading through this, and thanks in advance for those who will lend a hand 🙂

Best Answer

Well, here's how I would do it:

  1. Create and format all partitions to be used by Windows only.
  2. Install Windows 10 in either BIOS or EFI mode.
  3. Get a few cups of coffee while this installs.
  4. Install Ubuntu from the CD/DVD, and select to use your own partitioning (Make sure to boot from the Ubuntu DVD using the same mode you installed Windows in - BIOS or EFI).
  5. Create the Ubuntu partitions.
  6. Let it install Ubuntu.
  7. Get a cup of coffee while it installs.
  8. Check to see that it boots to the GRUB2 boot manager.
  9. Boot into each OS and make sure both have Identical network configurations. e.g. IP address, hostname, etc. You might want to add an identifier to the end of the hostname to distinguish which OS you're in, like this: MyAwesomePC-Win10 and MyAwesomePC-Linux.
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