Installation on dual boot-system

[palimmo]

Hi,
I'd like to install MX soon. I do not know if the actual version or the coming one. I'll see.
However: my hard disk situation is, as you can see here, complicated...

hd.png

sda 1 & sda 2: are windows/packard bell reserved partitions. I'm not sure if I could delete them. Probably not.
sda 3: win 7 partition. I know... it is very small and has no place left. But as far as I can see I have no choice and I cannot resize it easily. I do use win7 almost never, so... I do no really worry about that.
sda 5: solydxk partition. Only for the OS, since I have my data in the sda 6 partition. A little big bigger would not be bad, though.
sda 6: partition for documents, videos, musics, images,... everything.
sda 8: linux mint partition. Only for the OS.
sda 7: swap. I do not use hibernation, but sometimes I've noticed that my system uses swap, since probably 4GB RAM aren't enough sometimes.

In the future I would like to have only 1 linux OS (probably MX) beside win 7.

The easy option could be:
- merge sda 8 and sda 7 in a single ext4 partition (size ca. 14 GB) and here reistall solydk.
- convert sda5 to swap (size ca. 11,5GB). I know.. it's a waste of space. :roll:
Otherwise split sda5 in 2 partitions (still possible?): swap (ca. 4GB) and ext4 (ca. 8GB). This /ext4 partition with 8 GB could be used as /home.
8 GB should be more that enough: in my actual solydk installation the /home folder ist after ca. 5 years only 1,5GB, since all downloads, documents, etc. are saved as already mentioned in sda6.
Instead of /home, which other folder could be in the new 8 GB ext4 partition mounted?
(Per partition only a singular folder is possible, right?)

Do you have any better idea?
Thanks!

[JayM]

You don't even have to install MX right away. You can just run it from a Live USB pendrive with persistence enabled for now, so you can be getting used to MX while you're still making up your mind where you want to install it to. That will also help you to decide whether or not MX is for you before you start deleting or resizing partitions to make room for it. Later when you install, install it from your Live USB and tell the installer to include changes to the live desktop and all of your changes and customizations will be installed too.

[gosia]

Hello palimmo,
Only as a supplement to JayM's answer: What about this unused space behind sda6?

many greetings gosia

[palimmo]

Hi Gosia,

this space will be used for future documents, downloads, etc... I would prefer not to "consume" it.