Disk Partitioning

Here you need to allocate space for storing Linux. Minimally it needs a partition of several Megabytes, we recommend several partitions and 2GB in total for end user system (i.e., "Workstation" install option) for data safety, smoothness of system running and ease of backup.

Why partitioning?

1. Better performance when fsck is needed.
2. Crashing of one filesystem (partition) does not affect the others
3. Backup made easy
4. Using different version of the same filesystem made easy.

There is no general rules of partitioning that fit all situations. Plan according to your specific requirements.

There are three choices of disk partitioning:

1. Automatically partition and REMOVE DATA
2. Manually partition with Disk Druid
3. Manually partition with fdisk [experts only]

Pick the first one only when you want an easy life. All disk space not used in any partition plus any existing Linux partitions will be used to create new pre-set linux partitions. All data in the existing Linux partitions will be removed. No recovery is possible.

The next two choices requires you to have knowledge on disk partitioning. Both of them are not difficult, but partitioning with Disk Druid is a bit easier than with fdisk, so we go for the second choice - Disk Druid. (But sooner or later, you need to use fdisk.)