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I recently obtained a new computer. I also got a 1 TB hard drive. I want to partition it so I can use both Linux and Windows. This is mainly used for gaming. More games are available for Windows, so I want to set it up to give Windows more space. I'm thinking 256 GB to Linux and the rest to Windows. I want to be able to use Ubuntu for general Linux use, and SteamOS for gaming. However, I also want to be able to run games in Ubuntu, for when I'm already in Ubuntu and want to get going fast.

Since Linux and Windows can't share the same game executables, I'll have to install each game twice. Further, if I want to have Ubuntu and SteamOS both installed, they need separate partitions. I'll have to split the 256 GB Linux partition. I don't want to have identical game files in there twice though; that's a waste of space. So I figured out that the Linux partition can be split into 3 sub-partitions: Ubuntu, SteamOS, and a separate one called "Games". Then both Linux distros can pull from that one partition. I figure I'll allocate 32 GB for each of those 2 OS's, then put the rest of the 256 into the Games partition.

So my games will be installed twice: Once in the Windows partition, once in the Games partition. The problem is that I want my game saves and progress to be shared. I don't want to play a few levels in Linux and have that erased in Windows. Is it possible to make another partition that game saves will go into? In the same way that the Linux partitions share a Games section, can I make Linux and Windows share a Saves partition?

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Linux supports NTFS, so you can create an NTFS volume on Windows, and mount it on Ubuntu.

From a linux cli, you can do the steps below.

Print block device attributes:

sudo blkid

Example output:

/dev/sda1: LABEL="Recovery" UUID="B23613F43613B875" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Windows" UUID="38CE9483CE943AD8" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda3: LABEL="Saves" UUID="519CB82E5888AD0F" TYPE="ntfs" 
/dev/sda5: UUID="00d7d951-2a35-40fd-8e5d-411bb824ff3b" TYPE="swap" 
/dev/sda6: LABEL="Ubuntu" UUID="02f778eb-a386-47a4-94c0-15509e95d526" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="Games" UUID="40cd5b43-7330-4a48-bcf0-656473fec0fb" TYPE="ext4"

Create a mount point:

sudo mkdir /media/saves

Edit fstab, so it will mount on boot:

sudo nano -w /etc/fstab

Using the information from your blkid output, add a line to the /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sda3 /media/saves  ntfs-3g  defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8  0 0

Finally, mount the directory:

sudo mount /media/saves

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