PARTITION YOUR HARD DRIVE FOR A DUAL-BOOT SETUP
1. USE UBUNTU LIVE MEDIA
The simplest way to partition your drive is using the Ubuntu live media. After clicking Try Ubuntu, click the icon at the top of the Launcher on the left to open the Dash—this is the tool used to search Ubuntu. You should see GParted in the list (type gparted to bring it up if not), click it to launch the tool.
2. SELECT TARGET DRIVE
GParted will open with the current boot drive (typically dev/ sda, or dev/nvme0n1 in the case of NVMe drives) selected in the top right corner. This should be the drive Windows is installed on if you wish to share it with Ubuntu. Use its size and the partition list beneath to verify it is the correct one.
3. FREE UP SPACE FOR UBUNTU
Examine the partition layout. Right-click the largest partition on the right to resize it if it has enough free space—74GB is an ideal minimum. Click and drag the right-hand slider to the left to free up the space, leaving at least 10GB free space for the existing partition. Click the Resize/Move button.
4. PREPARE DEDICATED DRIVE
To install Ubuntu to its own drive, click the /dev/xxxx list to view other drives. If it’s a new drive, it will show up ‘unallocated’; otherwise, existing partitions will be visible. Confirm there’s nothing worth keeping on the drive, then right-click any visible partitions and click Delete.
5. APPLY CHANGES AND INSTALL UBUNTU
Click the green tick. Read the warning—if in any doubt, click Cancel and review your changes again. If you’re happy, click Apply and wait for the partitioning to complete. When done, click Close, then exit GParted and double-click Install Ubuntu 21.04, following the wizard to the ‘Installation type’ screen.
6. SET UP A LINUX PARTITION
If ‘Install Ubuntu alongside Windows Boot Manager’ is selected, click ‘Install Now’; if not, choose ‘Something else’. Locate your drive’s free space and click +. Set the Mount point to /, then click OK. Verify the drive Windows is on is selected for ‘Device for boot loader installation’, and click ‘Install Now’.