Dual OS and which OS is best to install first?

[Old Man]

Having Windows 7 (or XP) and wanting to also have Linux Mint 12, which of these is best installed first for a dual OS?

Also, what amount is good to have for Linux 12?

My Steam games etc will get most of the space for Windows, but unsure about Linux as I plan to use to more and more.

Since my other HD died, I have 1TB internal HD to make use of.


TY

 

[marc2003]

always install windows first. mint will recognise windows and will happily co-exist with it. if you installed mint first and then windows, windows wouldn't know and it would kill the linux bootloader. 10GB should be plenty for a base install - it depends on how much you plan to install. with 1TB, you could easily give it 50GB if need be. it can read/write windows NTFS partitions so you can share data between the 2 installs.

 

[Old Man]

always install windows first. mint will recognise windows and will happily co-exist with it. if you installed mint first and then windows, windows wouldn't know and it would kill the linux bootloader. 10GB should be plenty for a base install - it depends on how much you plan to install. with 1TB, you could easily give it 50GB if need be. it can read/write windows NTFS partitions so you can share data between the 2 installs.

Thanks.

Been asking a million questions to everybody, so ty.

 

[Dano]

General rule of thumb is oldest windows > newest windows > linux.

 

[Grenache]

also, there are various linux help pages for grub2 if you want to change which OS is the default (i.e. if you switch on the pc and don't select which OS).

E.g.


Change the order of OS listed:
sudo mv /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober /etc/grub.d/05_os-prober

Change default selection:
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
and set GRUB_DEFAULT=0 to 1 or 2 etc
Then always
sudo update-grub