dual boot windows 7 and opensuse 12.2

[foresthill]

@gogalthorp

You do not need a separate /boot partition except for special needs.

You will need the amount of space you intend for openSUSE non partitioned on the disk. So in general you will need to shrink the existing Windows partition(s) to leave the space to install. This is most safely done from Windows though the installer will do it also.

Recommended partitions are swap (1-2X memory), root (also known as / set at 10-20+ gig depending on needs) the rest in home (/home) that is where personal data and files go.

Note that if you have a UEFI BIOS or GPT partitioning you should come back for more info. These are relatively new and additional instructions may be needed

There is no single right way to partition or install. Linux is very configurable so you can make it fight your needs not fit you needs to the OS like other OS’s

That’s really it, in a nutshell. It’s not that complicated, but a small mistake can lead to a non-bootable Windows partition, so be very careful, and if you’re unsure about some option, don’t choose it unless you fully understand what it does. Because a non-bootable Windows partition is a nightmare if your computer didn’t come with an installation or restore disc, which most don’t (which I find 100% inexcusable).

The above applies only to Windows 7 and earlier.

I recently bought a Windows 8 laptop, that has a UEFI BIOS. I did an Ubuntu installation the way I always have, but afterwards, Windows 8 was unbootable, and I had no recovery disc. I do not consider this a bad thing though, Windows 8 was the biggest pile of rubbish I have ever seen, and would not even let me log on until I provided MS with my name, age, gender, phone number, email address and birthdate, as well as involuntarily forcing me to set up a Windows Live account. Which was awful enough, but the OS itself seemed to be designed by a 3 year-old with ADD.

[flymail]

On 2013-02-27, foresthill <foresthill@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> gogalthorp;2530352 Wrote:
SNIP
> Because a non-bootable Windows
> partition is a nightmare if your computer didn’t come with an
> installation or restore disc, which most don’t (which I find 100%
> inexcusable).
>
> The above applies only to Windows 7 and earlier.
>
> I recently bought a Windows 8 laptop, that has a UEFI BIOS. I did an
> Ubuntu installation the way I always have, but afterwards, Windows 8 was
> unbootable, and I had no recovery disc.
SNIP

In Windows 7, a recovery disk could be created within the operating system and booting from this disk allowed fixing
virtually any broken Windows 7 MBR. Is this no longer the case with Windows 8?

[foresthill]

@flymail

On 2013-02-27, foresthill <foresthill@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:
>
> gogalthorp;2530352 Wrote:
SNIP
> Because a non-bootable Windows
> partition is a nightmare if your computer didn’t come with an
> installation or restore disc, which most don’t (which I find 100%
> inexcusable).
>
> The above applies only to Windows 7 and earlier.
>
> I recently bought a Windows 8 laptop, that has a UEFI BIOS. I did an
> Ubuntu installation the way I always have, but afterwards, Windows 8 was
> unbootable, and I had no recovery disc.
SNIP

In Windows 7, a recovery disk could be created within the operating system and booting from this disk allowed fixing
virtually any broken Windows 7 MBR. Is this no longer the case with Windows 8?

Now that you mention it, there probably is a key that could have been pressed while booting up that would have started the recovery process. But that would have taken me right back to where I was, a laptop with Windows 8 and no Linux. And after playing around with Windows 8 for 3-4 hours, I concluded that the OS was completely unacceptable and I had no use for it. So I just wiped the disc clean and installed a dual boot system with Win 7 and Linux. Windows 7 is definitely the last Microsoft OS I will ever use.