A few questions before I reformat and install XP and Ubuntu

[addylad]

Hi,

So I'm almost ready to try out Ubuntu and XP together (dual booting) on my 5 year old laptop. It has XP Home, 1.5GB of RAM, 100GB hard drive and a 32bit Mobile AMD Athlon 2400+ CPU (no idea how good that is). I wanted to dual boot XP and Linux together, but I haven't got a clue about Ubuntu's requirements.

A bit of research told me that Linux is compatible with most hardware, and many people on here seem to have had success with their systems.

I had a few questions in mind:
1. I was going to go for a fresh install of both operating systems; would I install XP first and then Linux? I heard Linux recognises XP.
2. How much of the 100GB should I allocate to each operating system? Also, should I partition (at the moment it is 40, 40, 20) or not?
3. Would you recommend separate partitions for both Windows and Linux files?

Feel free to ask any questions, I have all day.

Thanks.

 

[addylad]

Thanks for the replies

Is that swap file created automatically? And should I remove all of my partitions before installing XP?

I can't wait

 

[addylad]

Remove all partitions, while installing XP, make one about half the size of the disk, which XP will be installed to.

When installing ubuntu tell it to use the remaining unpartitioned space as it wishes. The swap area will be automatic then.

Thanks very much. What format would you recommended for the partitions (I would have thought NTFS for Windows)? Also would removing the partitions be done during the Windows install, or before?

Sorry for these questions but I'd like it to go as smoothly as possible.