On 4.0 install Partitions don't match help manual

[firenice03]

You can use the recover part.. and the C part to be 50... When you delete the recovery partition it will go away to unallocated... You're using the spacing as well as the taking some of the C after the shrink. this will go to unallocated... then you will have create a partition and install in this newly allocated (+a swap). Your not extending this partition, its now a new - although it could be represented as sda3...      it should also now be at the end of the disk.
I may have skimmed over this piece...


You'll need to delete that partition, more so than reformatting - either way this info will be gone. The shrinking of Windows is in the manual.

[Searchernow]

Thanks for your assistance - I think my main mistake was to try this install while I've not enough time or headspace! I suppose I thought it'd be simpler.

I'll leave things as they are for now, then later when I've time I'll take a deeper look and report back here.

[Searchernow]

In Windows 7 I cannot shrink /C partition (more than 600mb) as there are files which cannot be moved by defrag. There may be complex work-arounds but I'm not going there now.

I feel for my purposes that the 12gb available on that computer's Recovery partition would be enough.
But! - it shows 1% fragmented, and the defrag will not work on it. A look on Windows 10 Forums suggests Recovery partition cannot be defragged.

Question: Can I install LL 4. to this partition, or will the 1% fragmentation make it a no-no?


Edit:  Or I could re-format that partition to ext4 using gparted in the live iso??  Then I could install there...?

[firenice03]

In Windows 7 I cannot shrink /C partition (more than 600mb) as there are files which cannot be moved by defrag. There may be complex work-arounds but I'm not going there now.

I feel for my purposes that the 12gb available on that computer's Recovery partition would be enough.
But! - it shows 1% fragmented, and the defrag will not work on it. A look on Windows 10 Forums suggests Recovery partition cannot be defragged.

Question: Can I install LL 4. to this partition, or will the 1% fragmentation make it a no-no?

Edit:  Or I could re-format that partition to ext4 using gparted in the live iso??  Then I could install there...?

Installing to the recovery will format it, ext4 for "/" is advisable...

I gave my Win10 box a quick attempt at a shrink, same kinda of error/message.. And to my expectations a semi easy fix..
https://www.disk-partition.com/articles/...-4348.html
I only attempted the 1st 4 items under manually disable. For What its Worth... And went from 600+mb to 90+ Gb...

Not saying you cant run LL on the 12gb partition, but your looking at 10 for "/" and  2 for swap give or take 1024 vs 1...

I know you mentioned having a copy/back up...
Regardless of how you decide... It never hurts to have a backup/copy etc.. I like a copy of my files somewhere and a backup/restore until I'm sure...


**Update** If you haven't running a "Disk Cleanup" and cleaning system files can give back gobs of space if you haven't run, sometimes 10's of GB's...

[Searchernow]

Thanks, I do appreciate your efforts, but that link shows what looks to me like a black magic minefield. i accept you can manage it, but I'm not going there.

The manual does say the min drive size is 8gb, or preferably 20gb.  Looking at this install (LL 4.2 which I'm using now) I can't imagine it fitting even into 20gb! But surely the manual is right.

-----

Another way to shrink the C (sda2) is via the live iso using gParted. I did a dry run on the other computer and it says it could have freed up about 45GB. But is this safe, ie I do want to still use the Win7 partition? Maybe it will just over-write the unmovable system files and cause Win7 to malfunction?

Note: Windows says 109GB free, gParted shows 49GB, so maybe it is avoiding the unmovable files??

[Searchernow]

Having revised my plans, I decided to load LL4 to the full Windows partition sda2, and left the Win7 Recovery partition sda3 in place, in case I ever need a Win7 pc for Windows based CAD programs. At present I have a suitable other Win7 pc for CAD.

So it's all resolved, I have Linux Lite 4.2 running on that laptop. And I notice the vast amount of extra free space - Windows OS (and whatever else they put in there!!) took over 200Gb, with LL4 it seems to be less than about 1/8 of that, and much faster!

Any problems I encountered above were due to Windows partition problems, and NOT any fault of Linux Lite.

Thanks for your help.

[firenice03]

[member=7079]Searchernow[/member]
Took the plunge and probably happier for it

I've only barely used CAD based and that was on Winders a long time ago... Mostly for screw around and way back in school...

There are CAD applications for Linux   == hhhhmmm maybe I'll have to look at too..

https://itsfoss.com/cad-software-linux/


If you find a good one I'd be interested to hear...

And:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuEngineering#CAD
http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/08/8-bes...linux.html

[Searchernow]

Yes, I'm glad I took the plunge, though in this case there was a great deal of work involved, not least re-organizing my files and folders. Merging photos folders alone (backups, copies of backups, backups of copies of ....) allows 140gb of duplicates to be deleted!

Having passed the anxieties involved, I have to say doing my same daily computer stuff on Lite 4.2 is far more pleasant. And an added bonus of more than 180gb of Windows "System"/spyware no longer there, ie another 180gb plus of free space (not counting the deleted photos above).

The major lesson learned - for the LL target audience like me, competent but not a linux-informed, it will not always be possible to Dual Boot, ie to simply shrink the Windows partition to allow unallocated space for a Linux partition alongside. This is due to Windows placing un-movable system files near to the partition end.

(There are complex potential work-arounds if you have the time and patience...)