Help with setting dual boot

[kommunist]

Yupi, got my first Mac few days ago. It is my first, so I need some help.

I work in research, so I need a lot of weird software, some of it working only on Linux system, but some also on Mac. All software needs big amounts of data (~100 GB). Some software require case sensitive file system (for Mac and Linux).

My plan is to create 3 partitions:
- OS X system ~ 30 GB
- Ubuntu or similar (+ swap) ~30 GB (+8 GB)
- data partition ~150 GB (readable and writable from both systems)

1. I reinstalled OS X and changed the file system.
2. I plan to use Boot Camp to set OS X partition on 30 GB.
3. I plan to install Ubuntu on the rest of the disk, create swap and data partition.
4. I plan to mount the data disk in OS X and Ubuntu.

Questions:
1. Is 30 GB enough for OS X and other commonly used software?
2. Is it better to use some kind of emulator for Ubuntu instead using dual boot?

Any comments and suggestions are welcome!

Thank you for your help!

 

[TEG]

1) You could just install Ubuntu for EFI/Mac along side of OS X.
2) You could use Parallels or Fusion to run Ubuntu and OS X at the same time.
3) I would suggest 40GB or more for each OS and related files.
4) I would see why this software you want to use requires Linux. Most POSTIX compliant Unix and Linux software will run on OS X through its build in X11 Windowing system. Those that say they don't work, usually say that so they don't have to support running in X11 or because they still think that Macs use PPC chips instead of Intel.

TEG