I have a hard drive with Windows 7. I would like to add OpenSUSE, creating a dual-boot configration.
The hard drive already has three primary partitions and an extended partition. If possible, I would like to free up disk space that is currently reserved for one of the primary partitions. It’s about 63 Gigabytes in size. On one side of this partition is the Win7 operating system. On the other side is the extended partition with several virtual regions that are pretty full.
Here is where I am confused:
I know that Linux wants to create Root, Home, and Swap regions. However, can they all be virtual partitions? Or, must some of them be primary partitions? If I understood this, then I would know how to proceed.
Could I just turn the 63-Gig region into a virtual partition, convert it to Ext4, and then run the Linux install program? Would the install program grab the Ext4 region and then use it to create all of the folders that it needs?
Is it OK to use virtual partitions for all regions? If not, what should I do.
I don’t know what you mean with ‘virtual’ partitions, but on a drive with a MBR (disk label termed ‘msdos’ using parted) you can not have more than 4 partitions.
So what you should create (using gparted, e.g.) is an extended partition, which then would be the 4th partition on your drive.
Within that you can create (as ‘logical drives’) root, swap, and home, for opensuse.
you can only have 4 primary partition one of which is can be an extended in which you put logical partitions. You can not have logical partitions outside of an extended. If you zapped the extended you had then the install would have to create another one in it’s place. But what ever floats your boat