I know that. And this website doesn't allow me to upload those image files due to their sizes. It is way more trouble for me to get them on a cloud storage.
In terms of partitioning, I saw one Zorin installation tutorial on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmz-51N2miQ). That tutorial shows only one partition is needed which is consist to other Linux distro installation. I will try your tutorial and see how it goes.
If you use the "install on whole drive" it should work fine. If you choose "something else" option, you must be sure to Set your Mount Point to /.
The mount point drop down menu appears in the popover window from clicking "Format Drive." You will see ext4 journaling files system and mount point.
That mount point is easy to miss. It gets people, sometimes.
That is what I did.
I would just do a reinstallation of the OS, then.
I already did that
It's dual boot- What is the other OS?
What is the make and model of the machine?
Does it use MBR (you said it is old, but old is relative) or EFI?
Windows XP
Dell Dimension 4600
I don't know MBP nor EFI
MBR- Master Boot Record- only allows up to four bootable partitions.
Efi- uyp to Four Bootable- more than four sub partitions- can be more than four bootable partitions if using with GPT (Guid Partition Table).
Win XP did not have Fast boot. You may have secure boot in your BIOS settings- might check that to be sure. But If Win XP, Dell Dimension- I suspect no secure boot and MBR, not EFI.
2 gigs is way too small, You need at least ten gigs minimum and even that would fill up faster than Donald Trumps wallet at an RNC convention.
Have you tried using Antix or Puppy Linux?
How do others have a dual boot with Zorin if the number of bootable partitions is limited to four as Zorin needs at least 3 partitions if my understanding is correct?
I misspoke the size. It is 20G instead. I have tried quite a few distros for the old PC including Antix. Some of them are too hard to install/setup.
Zorin OS only needs One Partition. It is possible to install it using different partitions and some prefer to, in order to preserve Home in case of reinstall later. You can use two partitions, with HOME installed on one and Root installed on the other.
I always use one partition and use back ups to preserve my data.
On your image, I see three partitions- one is unknown and labeled Swap (Swap should be on same partition), one is formatted to FAT 16.
Is this a 32bit OS?
Glad you clarified root 20G as per your screenshot, not 2GB, which would be too small.
On my XP Z15.3Core dual-boot, I have XP in one partition, then a second extended partition (sda2) containing linux-swap (sda5), root (sda6), and home (sda7).
Thanks for your info.
In my previous dual boot installations, there were four partitions in total. Windows uses two of them and Linux uses another two and one for swap. Now, it seems that Zorin needs an additional partition for the home. For a total of four partitions, that runs into a wall.
You are right.. The Dell desktop is 32-bit.
If my understanding is correct, your Zorin installation only uses one partition. If so, how did you install it?
I use the "Something Else method.
You may wish to download a copy of @swarfendor437 's Unofficial Manual for Z15. here: Unofficial Manual for Zorin 15
Actually, when I came to install Zorin 12 Core way back, I followed this thread by Wolfman, which is still on the old forum archive here: How to use Gparted to dual boot with Windows/ Linux - Old Zorin Forum archive
Undoubtedly MBR. Limited number of bootable partitions.
Note. I have hunted down an old archive thread and done an edit to my post above.
Depending on the amount of ram you're system has, and that a portion of the root partition will be used if you don't specify one, skip swap partition. Zorin root partition and windows will be two bootable partitions. You can have another, /home partition, not bootable... which reduces the need for a large root (configuration files, downloads, Customizations, documents) all stored here. You are not limited to 4 partitions. Your limit is 4 bootable. You confuse home for a bootable... it's not
That is to have an extended partition. Someone mentioned it to me today. That is some work of using Gparted.
The PC has 3G ram. It already has a swap partition from previous Linux installation. I assume it can be used for Zorin as well. I don't quite follow your first sentence. How can I use the "unusable" for /home?
