The distributions I've tried usually come with FireFox. In fact, Gnome extensions can only be installed via FireFox. Though, I prefer Chromium. I just use Chromium instead of Chrome because it's easier to install via CLI.

Egtho the development version from google plays my hulu and prime videos better... firefox sometimes? I like having more than one like DEs and on occasions GNU\Linuces.

D contained only two folders, one named "applications" and the other "drivers". I have moved them to C, deleted the D drive and everything seems to work in windows os. It raises a question though, they were in a separate drive to everything else by themselves, does it mean something important that shouldn't be fiddled around with?

No, not necessary. They may have been created (and put there) by your, PC manufacturer for re-installing apps (if need be).

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I'm on a newer computer so UEFI/GPT applies.
Should I rename the new partition in disk management or wait for GParted to do it?

Windows partition?? Linux partition??

It's a new windows partition with no name created within disk management in windows.

You should use the system the partition is for, so in this case, Windows (Disk Management) is what you should use to name/rename it with.

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Hey linux-man: Not wishing to contradict jsbjsb001 here, but if your objective is still to use the freed-up disk space to install linux, you need to create a new partition out of the unused space using GParted (or by relying on your chosen distro's partitioning tool). Windows Disk Management will not let you format a partition with the ext4 file system.

Please refer back to my post #58 and make sure you have followed all the steps leading up to this point. I see you have deleted the "D drive" partition ... Have you shrunk the main Windows partition to make further space available ?

Again, please refer back to that post (#58) and let us know where you are at and how it's going.

Cheers :-)

True, you can't format a new paritition in Windows as Ext4. But you can start the process by creating a Linux partition in any format Windows can handle. Once you do that, it'll be a lot easier when you go to install Linux. When you install Linux, you can just select your partition as the install drive. Let's say you call it LinuxDrive - then you just have the Linux installer install your distro-of-choice on that "drive". The installer will format the partition as Ext4 and then it will install your distro-of-choice on your hard drive partition - though, hopefully, you're using a SSD instead of hard drive (for speed & longevity).

I understand what you're suggesting. 2 comments:

1) Since linux-man's objective is to install linux, I would find it more intuitive to do the partitioning with either a linux-friendly tool such as GParted, or with the distro installation program if he prefers.

2) It's been quite a while since I've created a partition with Windows Disk Management, but doesn't it require the user to format after creation ? If this is so, it will be a bit of an inefficient step since the only file system Windows will offer is ntfs or one of the FAT variants. When it comes time to use the partition to install linux, it would have to be reformatted with ext4 (if this is the OP's file system of choice, which I seem to remember it is).

Cheers !

Back when I used loosewhoa$ I'd use it to shrink it's partition then install to free space... after data backups!

you won't need an anti-virus for linux ever perhaps. and anyway put that further below on your "new linux todo list". mind you its' a long todo list and you only do things once in life: so make sure you have some objective or are using truely spare time.

3. what browser would i use and what anti virus would i need , i am running kaspersky on the pc but i would asume that it wont be running when not in the windows partition of the pc.

use the most popular browser that your chosen linux distro suggests has the "highest popcorn" (most users of the distro are using)

Problems like?
The max file systems for a desktop/laptop should be?

That depends entirely upon the usage. Allow me to write a small book:

In the general case, the server focus should be on the use of the services for the maximum number of users. Space is allocated to make the services reliable. If someone runs out of room for their home folder and personal files, that is a low priority issue if all 1799 other users see no problem.

On a laptop there should BE no other users, and the home folder is near the top of the priority list. That one user is the entire excuse for HAVING that workstation.

In addition the build process is different. Hardware should be allocated to a server based upon what you should to expect near EOL for the server use. You plan for storage growth about five years out if you can. (If IT is managed by someone with an MBA, try for a year and take what you can get, trying to express clearly the expense and downtime that result from under-provisioning.)

A laptop with a single OS might have all space allocated to a single file system. More commonly two, but the second is for recovery and maintenance only. A power user or sysadm might have another for virtual machine space only or development files. A server provisioned that way would be almost criminally vulnerable to service outages due to space issues, but for a laptop, single user, SSD drive case it would be entirely appropriate.

For power users and SYSADMS you tend to see laptops and workstations partitioned for multiple operating systems, with each having at least two file systems available (though one of those may be a common file system for transfer of data between operating systems). The trick is to have that limited space never fill up and crash that OS. This is the risk if you allocate that limited space as you would on a server. The server protections actually put the single user case at greater risk of a space crunch or crash.

If you cut the space available for a single OS up fine, it becomes more likely that some operation is going to fill up a partition and crash some or all of your OS. On a server, the point is to limit what can be filled up and protect the other (or critical) operations. On a laptop, there ARE no other operations.

In all cases, your server build and provisioning, space allocation, and configuration decisions should be based upon a clear risk analysis and usage plan. For most people wanting a new workstation such analysis may be valuable, but is clearly overkill for the personal use (non-business) case.

The question that should drive your decisions should be "what do you plan to use this for?", followed by "Does the risk level, importance, and value of this operation justify detailed analysis or should I buy something that will work, load an OS, and get on with life?"!

Before I give specific advice about provisioning and storage allocation, I always want the detail about what the user wants to use the device FOR. Until one knows that, there is no pointed advice that is correct.

If you read down this far, you are as hard-core as I am. I got tired just typing this. ;-)

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