Hello everyone! I read great things abount opensuse 12.3, so I decided to try it in dual boot with Windows8 using EasyBCD following this guide:Dual-Boot openSUSE 12.3 And Windows » TweakHound
I have already prepared the unallocated space from windows8 disk management http://i.imgur.com/oXTGgA5.jpg (I have a Crucial M4 128GB ssd and a 2TB hard drive).
Everything goes fine until I have to edit partition setup. Probably I am doing a mistake because in the hard drives list the 35.43GB of ssd space where I want to install opensuse12.3 is not showned. Situation is as follows:http://i.imgur.com/8OYLRQi.jpg
So the 119GB of ssd are seen, but there are 35GB of unallocated space missing, so I cannot select it to set the mount point. I’d really like to install opensuse on the ssd to have a faster os. How can I solve this problem?
Since I am here, I’ll ask you a suggestion about home and swap partitions. Is it my intention to put swap and home folder into the mechanical hard drive (the 106GB free space partition) to save my ssd space. Infact I’d like to install steam, and put lots of videos and music on the home folder. Is it a good idea to have home and swap partitions on the mechanical hard drive, and mount point on the ssd together with windows8?
Thanks in advance 
Hi Enrico,
First of all, welcome. Have a lot of fun!
As far as I remember, the installer makes proposal for the partition setup based on the partitions it finds on the disk(s).
Your SSD is “sda” starting at “0” up to cylinder 15565. Your windows partition sda2 only ranges up to 10940.
You should be able to add a new partion at 10941 up to 15565. It is either in “edit partition setup” or “create new partition setup”.
You need to delete the proposed partition sdb6 and set it up manually on sda as sda3. sdb7 (or swap if you like) then should be resized so you can use the newly freed space on sdb.
I can not give you a full “howto”. I’d now just try it out as I don’t have to bother with dual boot and have all my data safely backed-up. I’d rather recommend not to do it like that.
There should already be some threads in this forum on the subject of partition setup and dual boot etc. you can search for. Some info on getting started on the oS homepage may also be useful:
openSUSE 12.3: Start-Up
I’d recommend you really make sure you know what you are doing before manually change the partition setup and back up your data before starting.
BTW, I also have my / on an SSD and /home on an HDD and both systems are quite fast with it.
rds
kasi
Thanks a lot for the help kasi042! I have everything backed up on 2 external hard drives. Anyway I will follow your suggestions. I will take time to read the link you just posted, and I will think carefully about how to partition my ssd and hard drive.
Tomorrow I will proceed installing opensuse12.3 I will let you know how it goes in this thread. I am really looking forward to be a part of the opensuse community!
Thanks again for the welcome and for the useful suggestions. I will keep you posted.
If you click on your ssd in the left column (sda in your case) you should also see the unallocated space…
I have always found it easier when dealing with multi-OS install to have a partition formatted rather than leave it as unallocated space. So my recommendation is to go back into Win8 and format the partition as fat32 and then start the openSUSE install.
Ok. So first step has been made! I have successfully installed opensuse12.3. But now I have a problem because I put my username and psw, but I am not able to log in. Anyway I think we can close this thread, since I was actually able to install opensuse using ssd’s unallocated space
Thanks to everyone that helped me out I just opened a new thread for my login problem https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/install-boot-login/486950-not-able-log-after-installing-opensuse12-3-a.html#post2556849
You are welcome to take a look. If you have any idea how to solve the new problem let me know Thanks again for the help.