Linux Mint Dual Boot Noob Questions

[Evolution-24]

 

hello all,

 

I have decided to take the plunge and wipe my system and reinstall in a dual boot config, However, I have not done this before. 

 

so my question is, what is a good enough amount of space to give to Linux Mint please?

 

The other thing is, should i go with x64 or 32bit Linux?  17 or 18?  Cinnamon or Mate?

 

I don't think i will be doing much that requires 64bit in Linux, unlike windows which i do play the odd game on

 

I have a brand new 500gb Samsung evo and I will be installing Win 7 Pro SP1 X64, and Linux Mint.

 

finally, Do i let the mint installer size the partition or is it best to install windows, then split that into 2 while in windows please,

then boot off the mint disc?

 

Cheers

 

 

Steve

 

 

[xendrome]

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2016/04/how-to-install-linux-mint-alongside.html

[Evolution-24]

 

Thanks a lot Xendrome, That is a very good site, Is 20GB really enough though, that isn't much, will that be ok for future updates and programs etc

[T3X4S]

I always do 20GB for the install partition, and a 4GB swap.  I do not know if this is best, as I am a noob as well.

Hopefully, you will find more to like than I have in the 20x I have install linux.

Once I get everything set up the way I like it, I always have a moment where I think, "ok, now what ?" -and go back to windows.

 

[Haggis Veteran]

it depends on how much your going to use it

 

my dual bot is on a 500gb SSD

 

i have 200Gb for windows and 300Gb for Linux

 

my root partition is 50gb and home is 250

[SALSN]

Okay not much going on in this forum, I realize I'm very late to answer this post, but perhaps someone else can use the answer or it can be used for a reinstall sometime in the future.

First get the 64 bit version, unless you have a very good reason not to, 64 is the future, and 32 is being phased out, at least for desktops.

With regard to desktop environment, that is entirely a matter of taste, they all do everything. I use standard Ubuntu with Unity, does everything, no need to look any further for my needs.

Install Windows first, then Linux. The Linux installers have no trouble dealing with Windows, but the other way around just gives you unnecessary trouble, at least that was my experience when looking into trying it with windows last, however that was years ago, so things could have changed.
For simplicity's sake I would install windows completely standard and then set the partitions up when you install Linux, that is the easiest way in my opinion. However you probably need to turn off the quick boot hibernation thing for Windows, to be able to mess with the partitions from the Linux installer, but you should do that regardless otherwise you can not access the files on the Windows partition from Linux.

Personally I don't bother with an OS only partition for Linux and just put it all in one partition, it has never caused me any problems. Also I disable the swap partition, but that might be a bad idea, if you expect to use more memory than your machine has RAM. But anyway, an old rule of thumb was to use double the amount of space for swap as you have in RAM, but if you have 8 or 16 GB of RAM that is ludicrous, 4 GB or even 2 should be more than enough for most people, if you want swap at all.

With regard to the split of space between Linux and Windows, that is entirely depended on what you use the different OSes for, if you keep Windows around for gaming you will probably need a lot of space for that, since most modern games take up vast amounts of space, however if you just keep windows around for some specific application you want to use every once in a while, don't put off more space for that than absolutely necessary.

Anyway I hope you are already an avid Linux user by now :-)