I recently picked up a T490 with 48GB RAM and a 1TB SSD, and I'm thinking about setting it up for dual booting with Linux Mint and Windows 11. My goal is to make sure I use the disk space wisely and avoid wasting space with over-allocation. I'm looking for some advice on a good partition setup and sizes specifically for the Mint installation. Should I create a dedicated EFI System Partition (ESP) for Linux to protect GRUB from being overwritten by Windows updates? If so, how large should that be? Additionally, what sizes would be suitable for the root and home partitions? Lastly, will running VMs perform better if I give them their own partition? Any tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
2 Answers
For a dual boot setup, I'd suggest you go with:
- 1 GB FAT32 EFI System Partition for the boot files.
- Around 500 GB for a Btrfs partition, which you can set up to include two subvolumes: one for `/` and another for `/home`. This setup keeps things organized while allowing you to manage disk space effectively. I'm hoping the Mint installer will recognize Btrfs subvolumes without any issues.
- Leave the remaining space for Windows, just keep it unallocated. When you install Windows, use the custom install option to select that free space.
And there's no need for a separate Linux ESP to keep GRUB safe from Windows updates.
I strongly recommend using a completely separate disk for Linux. It's better to avoid having duplicate EFI partitions on the same disk altogether.
Not really necessary; you can manage with just one EFI without running into issues.
But if I have one EFI for Windows and one for Linux, managed by GRUB, isn't that a safer way to keep Linux boot files intact during Windows updates?