How to choose mounting point manually?

[mxnerd]

As title. Not familiar with Linux.

I resized a drive so I got 20GB free space at the end of drive with existing Windows installation on it so I can dual boot.

When I tried to install KDE version from Linux Mint on that 20GB free space, it asked me to choose a mounting point, which one should I choose?

 

[lxskllr]

/

 

[mxnerd]

Chose "/" as mounting point and then it complained there is no swap partition.

Clicked "Back" button but there is no option to create swap partition.

Should I go back to WIndows and use free partition manager to create another partition first?

Let's say split that 20GB into probably 16GB and 4GB? Or what should be the proper sizes for the case?

 

[lxskllr]

Chose "/" as mounting point and then it complained there is no swap partition.

Clicked "Back" button but there is no option to create swap partition.

Should I go back to WIndows and use free partition manager to create another partition first?

Let's say split that 20GB into probably 16GB and 4GB? Or what should be the proper sizes for the case?

Are you sure you're doing this right? Usually the easy method is point the installer to the free space, and it puts everything in one partition, and maybe creates a swap partition, I can't remember. It can be done manually, and that's my preference, but you don't have a lot of space to work with, so making a partition too big will waste precious space. With lots of space, I usually have ~25gb /, 4gb swap, and the rest to /home.

I guess first, create a / partition, that's a couple gb short of the full capacity, then create a swap partition with the remainder. See if it likes that.

 

[mxnerd]

This was what Linux Mint KDE asked me.

What it said was that if I don't create a partition for swap purpose, the performance will be degraded if memory is scarce.

Does this work differently from Windows? I Windows you usually have a pagefile.sys file on the same partition as system boot partition, why Linux asks another partition for probably same purpose? What is the advantage of using another partition if it's the same drive?

 

[lxskllr]

You can use a swap file a la windows, but I've never done that. The traditional method is to use a partition. I couldn't say what the advantages are one way or the other, but a swap file makes more sense to me. Easier to resize if you got it wrong.

You can do what I said earlier, and leave room for a swap partition, but going all the way back when you first started, the way I remember the *buntus working is it gives you a few options for installing on the already used drive. The one you'd want is to install along side windows. Then you get a couple options for how you want to do that. The easy way is to use recommended settings. The installer will then set everything up for you. Looks like the option you chose was to setup the partitions manually. It's not that difficult, but it requires you to make choices, which is where you're at now. You may want to start the whole thing over, and see if there's an easier way to get where you want to be.

All of this is with the caveat that I've never done a full install of mint, but I doubt it's much different from ubuntu proper.

 

[mxnerd]

OK. Used Minitool Partition Wizard to resize free space to 30GB, created 25GB ext4 partition, and left with 5GB swap partition.

Installation success. Thanks.

Mint KDE did give me option to install to Windows partition (?) so I can access existing docs/pictures, but I have no intention doing that at this time, maybe later.

 

[manly]

Beginning with Ubuntu 17.04, the installer defaults to a swap file. From what I’ve read, this is just as efficient as a swap partition and can be less wasteful. Any distro can use a swap file, it’s not difficult to configure.

When using Linux, you’ll learn to Google a lot when questions arise.

 

[you2]

Strictly speaking you do not have to have a swap partition. Of course if the system runs out of memory it will kill apps very quickly. Having said that the folks above answered your question - use a swap partition or swap file.