I recently swapped out the hard drive on my old Panasonic Toughbook, which now has 164GB of free space after cloning Windows to the new drive. I'm planning to install Linux alongside Windows, but I'm not familiar with how to properly partition the drive or what sizes to use. Can anyone provide some advice on what partition sizes and configurations would be best for this setup?
3 Answers
Using a Gparted Live USB could help with your partitioning. I suggest creating a 1 to 2GB EFI bootable partition. A root partition size of around 25 to 40GB should cover most everyday usage. Don’t forget to add a swap partition if you plan to use hibernate. For any additional space, that can be allocated to a home partition.
One thing to consider is increasing your Windows EFI partition to about 1GB since that's usually a bit small. For your Linux setup, I recommend creating an 8GB swap partition for when you hibernate. Use the remaining space for your root partition - unless you're thinking of a different layout like separating your home folder, which is a viable option too!
How much space do you require for Windows? If you think the leftover space is enough for Linux, then go for it! A 50/50 split could work too, or you could round Windows' partition size up to a nice number and allocate the rest to Linux. If you're unsure about how much Linux will need, you might opt for a smaller partition now and expand it later as needed.
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