Background

As stated in other posts (Fix Broken Bootloader), my primary computer (laptop) has a multiboot setup; a triple boot using Xubuntu, LMDE, and Crunchbang. This article discusses the partition layout I use for this setup, actually my partition layout is more or less a generic linux disk layout multiplied by three due to the three OSes.

General Disk Layout

I generally put boot first as I rarely need to change the size/location of this partition, followed by root for the same reason. I also like to keep boot, root, and swap as primary partitions and leave tmp and home for extended. On most installs, I put all remaining disk space to the home partition and put this partition last as I like to be able to grow/move it if needed (e.g. copy partitions to a larger hard drive and expand space).

Details

When adding multiple OSes, you can reuse some (or even all) partitions. Due to complexity and/or my risk averse nature, I tend to only reuse the /tmp and swap partitions (note: if anyone has successfully shared an encrypted home partition between multiple OSes let me know).

To add a new OS, I simply create a new /boot, /, and /home partition and allocate the existing /tmp and swap partitions during the install of the new OS. Its really that simple. My complete disk layout for the triple boot laptop is as follows:

Notes

• notice that I deviate slightly from my above guide in that I try to put the home partitions toward the end of the disk as growing the partitions will be quicker/easier.