[Perroflaco]

I'm trying to install Ubuntu and trying to set up a dual-boot system. I got to the part where it says "Prepare disk space." Since I'm not familiar with partitions, I want to use the first choice, but I still want to dedicate most of the HD space to XP. What does the "New partition size" refer to? The Xp or Ubuntu side?

[Elvandil]

It wants to know how much you want to give to Ubuntu. Typically, you want 3 partitions for Ubuntu. If you click on the default settings but don't actually do the partitioning, it will show you how it would set it up as default. That will give you an idea of how much space to use for your partitions. Make sure you make a swap partition, too, and format it as a Linux swap partition. You may want to make your partitions larger than it recommends depending on what packages you intend to use, but you don't generally need to make the swap partition any larger than it recommends. I think a total of 10 GB's for all 3 is more than enough for most people. I'm running Ubuntu in a virtual machine inside Vista and have only 5 GB's for the Ubuntu drive. So far, that has been plenty large enough.

[Perroflaco]

Would I Still use the first (default) of the options given or the "manual"? What would happen If I don't set up a swap partition? Thanks a lot for your help.

[Elvandil]

The swap partition is the Linux page file. It gets used in the place of physical memory when not enough memory is available. Ubuntu might run, but you just plain need a swap partition.

Have you considered running Ubuntu inside XP instead of partitioning? You can make it full screen and you barely notice that XP is the host.

This is XP inside of Vista, but the idea is the same: