Hi i am a new Zorin user and I am curious to know why this extended partition exists on my hard drive (I didn't configure it during install).
Does this partition exist for a reason?
Hi and welcome to the forum 
I think our member @StarTreker has the same configuration as you have. He said he installed Zorin without user intervention.
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FrenchPress is correct. I tell you all I did.
Step (1)
I made sure that SECURE BOOT and FAST BOOT were disabled in my BIOS
Step (2)
I booted off of the USB drive, then I clicked on Try Zorin OS.
Step (3)
I loaded up Gparted and I formatted my hard drive to GPT, and made sure all I had left was unnallocated space with no partitions on the drive.
Step (4)
I then re-launched the Zorin installer, I clicked on erase disk and install Zorin OS. This was the finished result.
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Thank u StarTreker! I installed GParted and launched the application, and it shows "sda5" sorted under "sda2" so now I understand the extended partition is the same as the swap partition. I suspected something was wrong with the partition configuration, maybe swap. You see, I was expecting a faster laptop after the switch from Windows 10. Booting and logon is slower than before, and launching Libre Office Writer takes longer than Microsoft Word did on Windows 10 in the same laptop. I had a unused spare HDD of exactly the same kind, so i took out the old HDD and replaced it and installed Zorin. What you say, should I try to change swappiness settings, try to find other way to tweak Zorin OS to work faster, or reinstall and start over?
Why is there an unallocated partition 1.39 MB in size?
Maybe I did something wrong during install...
Maybe 20 GB swap is too much since RAM is only 4 GB on this laptop?
And it won't accept bigger RAM...
I could try an SSD of course.
As you can see on this screenshot RAM is not full, so I think maybe an SSD will help boot time and loading applications in to RAM will be faster.
No, I think you did fine, that 1MB unnallocated space don't matter, don't hurt nothing, and the space insignificant, so don't worry about it.
Judging by the RAM in your machine, it looks like you only have 4MB, that isn't much, but we can make it work in the future if you don't wish to upgrade it, or can't upgrade it further.
The Zorin team, which consists of only 2-people, are working on Zorin OS 16 LITE. Once that is released, I would recommend switching to Zorin OS 16 LITE.
None of us know when LITE will be released, there is no info on that, except that they are working on it. The reason I am recommending LITE, is because it uses less resources, and will run faster on your computer, and will work with 4MB RAM easily.
Please also keep in mind, that if you are running on a mechanical hard drive, its always going to be slow no matter what you do. I really recommend you upgrade to an SSD drive.
I believe you are currently running on Zorin OS 16 CORE, correct? If so, please update your profile to reflect the version of Zorin OS you are using, it will help in future support requests having that info ahead of time.
Here's the thing with CORE though, it uses Gnome. Gnome is well known for being a resource intensive desktop environment to run. In other words, it uses a lot of CPU and RAM. If you can live with it until LITE is released, like I am doing, great!
I would really recommend you to switch to an SSD drive when you are able to. I also recommend adding more RAM if you can, if you can't, thats ok, just a recommendation.
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Thank you StarTreker! Nice to know my system is ok. I will consider your advice about switching to SSD and/or LITE. I am using CORE now. I have tried to update my profile with info about my Zorin OS version, but all I can see is "Zorin OS editions: None" but no link or button I can use to change that.
Salve/preferences/profile
Scroll down till you see Zorin OS Edition.
Choose from the drop down box.
Then submit the changes by the big blue button at the bottom.
And your welcome
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Done! How did I miss that, thanks again!
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Just a comment that I find it odd that the swap area is halfway down the drive when conventionally it is at the end of the drive when done manually.
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That is very true.
Mine is always made at the end of the partition manually and I do not use an extended partition.
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What you guys need to keep in mind is, the automatic installer, does not do the same thing that you would in a manual install. This is why its always a good idea to take screenshots of our Gparted's, that way we have something to compare with.
May the partitions be with you 
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I use extended (logical) for /home at start and swap area at end with / being the only Primary partition, probably because I am using MBR not GPT.
I also never use /boot unless needing to put GNU/Linux on a silly eeepc netbook that has SSD split into 4 Gb and 6 Gb that I did for my manager and she never used it! Aaaarrrggghh!
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It sounds very familiar.
You made all that effort and people does not use it nor appreciate it.
Talking abut proverbial swain 
and pearl 
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