best way to partition windows 7 for linux
i installed vmware player (freeware) and then used it to install Linux Mint 9 Xfce version. The VMWare player will create a virtual drive that can be dynamically expanded. It works great. The VMWare player can be down loaded from the VMWare web site. The also have some prepackage Linux virtual appliance that one can download without having to install anything.
I also used Virtual Box which is a freeware virtual machine and installed Ubuntu Linux. It also installs to virtual partitions which means that you do not have to create a new partion on your hard drive. I think I like VMWare better, because I could not figure out how to use the whole screen with Virtual Box.
