Ubuntu Support Template
Ubuntu Version:
24.04 but I am trying to install Xubuntu 25.10
Problem Description:
I’m back. This group’s worst nightmare (though this should be my last Ask - for a while)
I am trying to lighten my Ubuntu footprint (as mine straight Ubuntu gets bogged down on my older system)
I have tried both L- and Xbuntu and find I prefer Xubuntu as a “Lite!” alternative
after testing it on a second system I’d like to install it on my main system (which I have backed up)
However, I still struggle to understand partitions.
Ideally I would install XUbuntu alongside both Ubuntu 24.04 and Windows 7
Xubuntu though is only showing me the install options shown in the attached screen shot. erase Ubuntu 24.04 OR erase Windows 7 OR erase them both.
So I dipped into the Install Manually but here I get confused.
- do I have two (2) Windows 7 installs? in different locations? (very possible)
If so, how could I clean that up?
- can I slot Xubuntu in here somehow alongside everything else?
I don’t seem to know how to do that.
1 Like
If you do not need sda2, you could use the partition for Xubuntu
Select the partition and click Change
Format to ext4 with Mountpoint /
Apologies to @midtownee, the above is nonsense, I misread the partition size
What is allocated to sda4?
Perhaps create free space there for Xubuntu
Similar procedure, click Change and reduce size to create free space
Then, use the free space to create a partition ext4 with Mountpoint /
Just offering the way forward without being too precise because I don’t know the contents of sda2 and sda4.
I’m pretty sure that sda2 is a Windows version in old fashioned Legacy mode and sda3 is Ubuntu 24.04.
Hopefully, you have started the Xubuntu installer in Legacy mode
You can double check with this command via the terminal
[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "UEFI" || echo "Legacy"
The small NTFS is probably a Windows boot partition. Not absolutely required as old BIOS type Windows does allow one partition install.
Old Windows used BIOS boot and required MBR (msdos) partitioning. That has a 4 primary partition limit and you have used all 4.
The most common workaround for the 4 primary partition limit is to backup/erase/convert one primary partition to an extended partition which only acts as a container for logical partitions. You then can have an unlimited number of logical partitions.
Newer hardware since about 2012 uses UEFI boot and gpt partitioning. Windows requires gpt for UEFI boot, Ubuntu does not but should as you cannot mix BIOS boot Windows with UEFI boot Ubuntu.
Later versions of Windows 7 allowed UEFI/gpt but not many systems used that. Most Windows 7 systems were BIOS/MBR. Since Windows 7 is so obsolete, you should consider removing it.
If system is so old as to be BIOS only, you can still use the improved gpt partitioning with Ubuntu installs. gpt offers 128 primary partitions, no logical or extended as not needed. But conversion from MBR to gpt totally erases entire hard drive, or good backups required. And if BIOS boot you need a tiny 1MB unformatted partition with bios_grub flag for BIOS boot on gpt.
2 Likes
In my opinion sda1 is the windows boot partition. It is only 104.86 MB. That is much too small for the Windows operating system. I think that Windows is in sda2. That is 47.2 GB in size. Which is slightly more than twice the recommended minimum size for Windows 7.
What is sda4 being used for? It is a Linux Ext4 filesystem. It is 146.66GB in size. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is said to be in sda3 = 56.06GB
If you run the Disks utility from the Xubuntu or Ubuntu live session. You will see information about your drive and its partitions from a different point of view,
In my opinion it is the existence of sad4 as a Ext4 filesystem that is forcing the installer to recommend the erasure of Windows 7 or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
What are you using sda4 for? Would shrinking sda4 to create room for a Xubuntu partition create problems for any data you have there? How full is sda4?
Regards
1 Like
Yes, indeed - I misread the size.
MB rather than GB
I have edited my earlier post
Oh my. and I misread that Partition schematic too.
My very Bad.
