Partitioning

Before installing Linux, it's recommended that you back up your personal files first somewhere else because Linux uses different filesystem (ext4) than Windows (NTFS).

While you can read NTFS drive(s) from Linux, you can't read ext4 drive(s) (at least natively) in Windows. And it is highly recommended that you don't use NTFS in Linux, unless it's for file transferring like a Flash Drive.

Simply because when working with NTFS, sometimes NTFS flags/marks your disk as dirty and you have to clean them. And there's a chance that cleaning them will actually delete some of your personal file, or corrupts your entire disk (speaking from my past experience), or even make your Linux unbootable if you plan to auto mount an NTFS partition (you still can fix it from the TTY, although a bit inconvenient since this is a beginner guide and not an advanced guide, so it's advised to not auto mount your NTFS partitions)

Once you done with your backups, we can continue on how to partition your drive for Linux usage

About disks in Linux

Linux uses /dev for their disks (sometimes devices too, like your Gamepads), so if you want to find your disks, just run sudo fdisk -l to show all disks

• If you're using HDD, chances are it's listed something like this: /dev/sda1

• I am not really sure about SATA SSD (chances are it's the same as HDD)

• But if it's NVMe, it should says something like this: /dev/nvme1n1p1 Your installer should tell you which disk is which

Example of disks name in CachyOS Installer

No Dual-Boot

In case you want to fully move to Linux, and assuming you have made a backup of your personal files, you can simply choose the option that says along the line of: "Erase the whole disk"

Dual Boot (Windows and Linux)

WARNING! I will assume that your Windows OS has EFI partition, because we will be mounting that partition to Linux mount partition in order for GRUB to detect the boot entry so that you can boot your Windows OS from GRUB. But if you somehow don't have EFI partition for your Windows OS, there's a guide for that

In case that you still want to have your Windows OS, you have to select the option to "Manually partition my disk" (or along the line of that sentence) when installing your Distro, then follow these steps to configure Dual Boot system

1

Setting up your Partition

If you're using UEFI, follow this partition table:

Mount point on the installed system	Partition	Partition type	Suggested size
/boot1	/dev/efi_system_partition	EFI system partition	1 GiB
[SWAP]	/dev/swap_partition	Linux swap	At least 4 GiB
/	/dev/root_partition	Linux x86-64 root (/)	Remainder of the device. At least 23–32 GiB.

However, if you're using BIOS, use this partition table instead:

Mount point on the installed system	Partition	Partition type	Suggested size
[SWAP]	/dev/swap_partition	Linux swap	At least 4 GiB
/	/dev/root_partition	Linux	Remainder of the device. At least 23–32 GiB.

Source: Arch Linux Example Layouts

2

Setting up Dual Boot on GRUB

• Once you installed your distro, open /etc/default/grub with text editor of your choice

• Uncomment GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false at the very end of the file by removing the #

• Open your terminal, type sudo fdisk -l and find out which disk and partition is your Windows EFI (Hint: Your Windows EFI System Partition should be in the same disk where your Windows OS is installed)

fdisk example output

• Once you figure that out, mount your Windows EFI partition, and update your GRUB config

  sudo mount /dev/your_efi_system_partition /mnt 
  sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

• If the output says something along the line of "Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/your_efi_partition/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi", then your Windows OS should be listed on your GRUB bootloader list

Example GRUB update output