Hey everyone! I recently got a Lenovo T490 with 48GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, and I'm thinking of setting it up as a dual boot machine with Linux Mint and Windows 11. I'm trying to figure out the best way to partition the disk without wasting any space. What would be a good partition scheme and sizes for the Mint setup? Also, should I create a separate EFI System Partition for Linux to prevent issues with Windows updates messing up GRUB? If I do that, how big should it be? And what about the sizes for the root and home partitions? Lastly, will running VMs from their own partition perform better? Thanks in advance for your help!
2 Answers
For your Mint setup, I suggest you go with:
- A 1 GB FAT32 EFI System Partition (ESP) for the bootloader.
- A 500 GB Btrfs partition for Linux Mint, where you can create two subvolumes: one for `/` and another for `/home`. This keeps them separate but also shares space, which is handy. Just check if the Mint installer supports Btrfs subvolumes.
- Then, leave the rest of your SSD unallocated for Windows. When you install Windows, choose the custom installation, select that unallocated space, and proceed with the install.
As for the separate ESP for Linux, it's not really necessary unless you want to be extra cautious.
And no, VMs won't run significantly smoother from their own partition; performance is more about the hardware than the partition layout.
I would recommend using a completely separate disk for Linux instead of putting both EFI partitions on the same disk. It keeps things cleaner and avoids potential issues with boot management.
It's not necessary, but if you want to do it that way, just make sure you keep backups and be cautious with Windows updates.
I see your point, but wouldn't having separate EFI partitions for Windows and Linux managed by GRUB be a good way to protect the Linux boot files from Windows updates? Just trying to understand!