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javeree Guru
Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 453
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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Partitioning is one of the topics where everyone has (and is entitled to) his own opinions, so I'll feel free to present mine
The partitioning like you do it is fine, although I think that your swap partition is kinda oversized. If you ever need more than one or even .5 Gb swap, you really should consider buying some additional RAM. Another tip is if you use grub as a bootloader to create a directory /boot/grub and a symlink Quote: | ln -s /boot/ /boot/boot. |
Personally, I tend to make a separate partition for /home to make sure that user data are separate from OS (a remnant of my Windows days, where a reinstall meant killing all your data).
Others sometimes create separate partitions for /var (because that contains a non-fixed amount of data -e.g. in some configuration it contains mail- and they want to make sure it has an upper limit, and reaching that limit should not affect the OS).
Furthermore, a lot of people put /usr/portage on a separate partition because they want to use a different file system (reiserfs) that is better suited for many small files. I once did it and did not see 'by the naked eye' major speed differences
About your second question:
If you want to install a second distro, you should install it on a separate partition, but you can use the same /boot partition.
Last edited by javeree on Tue Jul 28, 2009 8:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
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cach0rr0 Bodhisattva
Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 4123 Location: Houston, Republic of Texas
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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I don't know how well this would play with another distro on board (I've never tried it!), but I can't speak highly enough of LVM
LVM allows you a tremendous amount of flexibility, as you can resize volumes on the fly
Couple that with a modern file system such as XFS that allows for online growing or shrinking, and you basically have a system where you can afford to make mistakes when choosing partition sizes, as the mistakes are very quickly and easily remedied.
For my buddy's server, this is how we have things set up
Code: |
meat@pantheon ~ $ sudo df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 2.1G 205M 1.9G 10% /
udev 10M 92K 10M 1% /dev
/dev/mapper/vg0-usr 10G 2.0G 8.1G 20% /usr
/dev/mapper/vg0-tmp 2.0G 4.5M 2.0G 1% /tmp
/dev/mapper/vg0-opt 5.0G 4.2M 5.0G 1% /opt
/dev/mapper/vg0-var 10G 254M 9.8G 3% /var
/dev/mapper/vg0-storage
850G 54G 797G 7% /storage
/dev/mapper/vg0-home 20G 203M 20G 1% /home
shm 374M 0 374M 0% /dev/shm
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cat /proc/mounts (same as typing 'mount' with no arguments)
irrelevant stuff removed
Code: |
/dev/sda3 on / type reiserfs (rw,noatime,notail)
/dev/mapper/vg0-usr on /usr type xfs (rw,nodev,noatime,logbufs=8)
/dev/mapper/vg0-tmp on /tmp type xfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noatime,logbufs=8)
/dev/mapper/vg0-opt on /opt type xfs (rw,nosuid,noatime,logbufs=8)
/dev/mapper/vg0-var on /var type xfs (rw,noatime,logbufs=8)
/dev/mapper/vg0-storage on /storage type xfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,noatime,logbufs=8)
/dev/mapper/vg0-home on /home type xfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,logbufs=8)
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Notice the different mount options per partition
For my laptop I have still separated var/opt/tmp/usr and whatnot out onto their own partitions via LVM, however as it is a laptop I have the bulk of the space allocated to /home, since that's where most things saved through Gnome (or whatever other desktop env you choose) are going to reside
Code: |
laptop01 ~ # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 1.1G 259M 777M 26% /
udev 10M 172K 9.9M 2% /dev
/dev/mapper/crypt-usr
10G 4.2G 5.9G 42% /usr
/dev/mapper/crypt-home
100G 1.8G 99G 2% /home
/dev/mapper/crypt-opt
5.0G 211M 4.8G 5% /opt
/dev/mapper/crypt-var
5.0G 264M 4.8G 6% /var
/dev/mapper/crypt-tmp
2.0G 33M 2.0G 2% /tmp
shm 1008M 0 1008M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 130M 9.6M 113M 8% /boot
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notice /home is 100GB.
One of the things so beautiful about LVM, is if you chose to add another hard drive to the laptop (assuming it supports that), you could 'extend' and include the new drive onto the existing volume group - so basically, it would be seen as just part of your existing volume. Rather than having to create a new mount point for it, you could simply give that new space to /home or something existing *without* having to remove the prior allocation of /home
I probably explained this poorly, but it's early, and I've had no coffee. |
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d2_racing Bodhisattva
Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 13047 Location: Ste-Foy,Canada
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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Hi murderpenguin, I don't see any problem if you use your current partition layout. |
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depontius Advocate
Joined: 05 May 2004 Posts: 3522
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Now let's have some fun... Obviously you need root (/) and swap, and as others have said, a separate /home is good, so your data can survive a reinstall.
Beyond that, I've gone after "activity type". An ext3 filesystem is resistant to fragmentation, but it can still get fragmented. But by doing activity-oriented partitioning that fragmentation can be minimized. With a few notable exceptions, / and /usr are not just read-mostly, they're read-almost-always. Then /var gets written almost as much as it's read. With ext3, the act of writing can itself be a defragmenter, depending on circumstances - mainly freespace and its distribution. But there are a few pieces of / and /usr that are heavily read-write - most notably /usr/portage and /usr/src.
So for my normal install, I might have root (/), /home, swap, and /var partitions, but with a small twist. In /var I have /var/usr/portage and /var/usr/src, and I bind-mount those over /usr/portage and /usr/src, respectively. Thus the heavily-written parts of / or /usr are really moved to /var. In addition I make /var/root/tmp and /var/root/root, and bind-mount them over /tmp and /root, respectively. Now root only gets written for /etc/mtab and software updates - all other writes go to /home or /var.
To be honest, the effectiveness of this is all pet theorizing - I've never evaluated the effectiveness in preventing fragmentation. Sometime I should boot a CD and give it a check, but then I need a control system to compare to. _________________ .sigs waste space and bandwidth |
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Mike Hunt Watchman
Joined: 19 Jul 2009 Posts: 5287
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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Mine is somewhat similar to cach0rr0's buddy's server:
sda1 is /boot 54M
sda2 is swap 1G
sda3 is / 20G
sda4 is lvm 20G
my lvm: | # lvs
LV VG Attr LSize Origin Snap% Move Log Copy% Convert
distfiles vg -wi-ao 4.00G
home vg -wi-ao 2.70G
portage vg -wi-ao 2.00G
tmp vg -wi-ao 2.00G
vartmp vg -wi-ao 6.00G |
My filesystems are ext2, except for / and /home which are JFS. |
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timeBandit Bodhisattva
Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 2719 Location: here, there or in transit
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Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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Merged murderpenguin's post onward to the partitioning sticky.
@murderpenguin, welcome to Gentoo and congrats on your first install. Please be sure to read the forum Guidelines (when your eyes recover from all the reading to get this far ) and note in particular #3 (search before posting, which includes looking for relevant stickies (like this one) and FAQs). Thanks! _________________ Plants are pithy, brooks tend to babble--I'm content to lie between them.
Super-short f.g.o checklist: Search first, strip comments, mark solved, help others. |
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Plymouth n00b
Joined: 17 Oct 2009 Posts: 1
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Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2009 4:00 pm Post subject: Multiple Distro Installation Query |
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I'm currenly running Linux Mint quite happily.
However, I am aware that this distro is like a bicycle with stablizers, and so am interested in experimenting with other distros.
Since I have a large capacity hard disk, what I'd ideally like to do, is install another distro alongside Mint, and flip between them as and when necessary.
I can create the necessary extra partitions, but I don't know how to specify which partitions the new distro should be installed into - ie, ensure that it doesn't overwrite Mint!
Any help and advice would be gratefully received |
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NathanZachary Moderator
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2608
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Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:08 pm Post subject: |
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Merged the above post. _________________ “Truth, like infinity, is to be forever approached but never reached.” --Jean Ayres (1972)
---avatar cropped from =AimanStudio--- |
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NotQuiteSane Guru
Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 488 Location: Klamath Falls, Jefferson, USA, North America, Midgarth
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Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2009 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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I need to keep windows on my new netbook, and dual boot. I haven't owned a copy of windows since the early 90's and am needing to verify my partition scheme. using 160gb drive.
sda1 64 mb /boot
sda2 512 mb /
sda3 4 gb swap
sda4 5 gb /mnt/windows
sda6 (rest of drive) LVM
is that a good layout, or does windows need to be @ sda1, and move the rest down?
NQS _________________ These opinions are mine, mine I say! Piss off and get your own.
As I see it -- An irregular blog, Improved with new location
To delete French language packs from system use 'sudo rm -fr /' |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:45 am Post subject: |
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Hello,
Expecting to run in a x86-64 multilib environment with 4G ram, I would like your opinion about the (im)pertinence of the following partition scheme.
Everything is sliced into an extended partition :
/................ 256 M ....... ext2
swap........ 6 G
/xtmp .... 10 G .......... ext2
/var ....... 3G ............. ext3
/usropt ... 64G ......... ext3
/home .... rest of the disk.
with :
/tmp symlinked to /xtmp/tmp
/var/tmp symlinked to /xtmp/var/tmp
/usr symlinked to /usropt/usr
/opt symlinked to /usropt/opt
Additionally, (sorry for that noobish question but I am used to other operating systems for which I never had to worry about this) which partition should I flag active under fdisk ?
The extended one ? The logical one containing root ? both ? |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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I don't quite know what you'd do with 256G of /, since I've never used more than
32G. I suppose if you put a lot of stuff into /opt you might need it, but in that
case /opt might be better off on another partition, since rebuilding 256G worth
of data would be a pain. In that case you could link /usr/opt to /opt, though
I've never known /usr/opt to use a lot of space. (Note: if you know differently,
stick with what you know - this is definitely a situation in which YMMV.)
/var needs to be around 8G, at least, preferably 16G if you are building big
packages like Open Office.
/usr/portage is best put on its own partition, since it needs a lot of small files,
best handled by a filesystem set up for that layout. 16G would be ample.
I don't know what /xtmp is, since I've never seen it.
Generally I'd make all file systems ext3 or preferably ext4, except for /boot,
which I keep as ext2 simply because grub _used_ not to handle ext3; I'm
not sure what it can handle now. And a separate /boot partition of 64 or
128 MB will make your life a lot easier when it comes to updating the system.
I'd be inclined to avoid symlinking where possible; I'm not sure what it does
for speed.
If you are really flush with space, add a spare 8GB / partition which you can
boot via the grub menu to repair/update your main setup. It won't need X;
just a login to a shell prompt.
Will |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54578 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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aCOSwt,
If you are short of partitions use LVM.
/boot cannot be inside LVM but / can if you are prepared to vive with an inird to start LVM before you mount root.
LVM gives you dynamically resizable partitions. Make sure you choose filesystem types than can also be grown/shrunk. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you for answering will.
As a matter of fact, it is not 256G that I intend to give to / but 256M
Regarding the size of /var, your advice is wise however, it seems to be because of /var/tmp
and as I intend to symlink /var/tmp to somewhere in xtmp where it can share 10G with /tmp, I hope that 3G will be enough for handling the other potentially "big" directories of /var such as www.
Thank you for suggesting ext4 ! The handbook does not mention this filesystem type, and as I had stuck to the handbook for installing...
I come back from wikipedia about it and read some performance testings, I certainly would have had some regrets not knowing it before going further in the installation process.
I will follow you and change everything for ext4 apart / remaining in ext2 as well as xtmp as I do not care about journaling for tmps.
I feel symlinks more rational regarding space management. I agree that they necessarily increase the access time to the real file however... certainly less than a shortcut-icon on any desktop manager...
Regarding the space left free for a rescue partition, I have a 4G old IDE drive that I thought would deal with this.
Thanks again will.
Last edited by aCOSwt on Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54578 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:24 pm Post subject: |
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aCOSwt,
256M is too small for / I'm using 625M there now. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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Thank you NeddySeagoon for the warning about size for / , I will put 1G as I will probably have a couple of kernels.
Regarding LVM... Hmmm... I may be wrong but... it sounds like GEOM...
And having had many problems implementing GEOM on my FreeBSD box... I was a bit... reluctant...
Nevertheless I will read more about LVM.
Thanks again. |
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cwr Veteran
Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 1969
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:48 am Post subject: |
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Sorry, that was careless of me; however, if 256G is curiously large, 256M is
way too small. I wouldn't build with less than 4G, even for a system without
X; 8G is tight, and 16G preferable. Note that the kernels themselves take up
little space; a separate /boot can be 64M or less, but you need at least enough
space on / to unpack a stage 3 file, and if you then want to install Gnome or
KDE a lot more.
Will |
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NotQuiteSane Guru
Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 488 Location: Klamath Falls, Jefferson, USA, North America, Midgarth
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:08 pm Post subject: |
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NeddySeagoon wrote: | aCOSwt,
256M is too small for / I'm using 625M there now. |
perhaps if you run a lot of bloat. df reports i'm using 101mb of 512mb on this box.
NQS _________________ These opinions are mine, mine I say! Piss off and get your own.
As I see it -- An irregular blog, Improved with new location
To delete French language packs from system use 'sudo rm -fr /' |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54578 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 2:25 pm Post subject: |
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NotQuiteSane,
Oops, 140Mb of that is my stage3 that I installed from _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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NotQuiteSane Guru
Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Posts: 488 Location: Klamath Falls, Jefferson, USA, North America, Midgarth
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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NeddySeagoon wrote: | NotQuiteSane,
Oops, 140Mb of that is my stage3 that I installed from |
You should do like me. I keep 4 different stage3's (x86, p4, ppc and sparc) on the file server. when i setup a new box i ssh over, update it, mount it via nfs, decompress, mount portage via nfs and go.
saves time and space, since even with daily builds i only update if it's excessivly out of date (i.e. months), and all the work in updating to current is done via distcc anyhow.
NQS _________________ These opinions are mine, mine I say! Piss off and get your own.
As I see it -- An irregular blog, Improved with new location
To delete French language packs from system use 'sudo rm -fr /' |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54578 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:26 pm Post subject: |
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NotQuiteSane,
I've rationalised my network now. The last i586 or older has gone, it just i686, amd64 and a U10 for interests sake and a web server, since SPARC won't run script kiddies shell code.
I tend to keep everything I download so I have some old things kicking about _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:47 am Post subject: |
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Thanks to cwr and NeddySeagoon, and, even if I have been very surprised by NeddySeagoon's need for more than 512M on / (Probably a Site-Admin characteristic ) I amended my partition scheme. :
/ - Ext2 - 1G
/Xtmp - Ext2 - 16G
/var - Ext4 - 4G
/UsrOpt - Ext4 - 64G
/home - Ext4 - Rest of the disk
With Additionally :
/tmp -> /Xtmp/tmp
/var/tmp -> /Xtmp/var/tmp
/usr -> /UsrOpt/usr
/opt -> /UsrOpt/opt
And (To start with) a 1G Swapfile in /Xtmp. |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:33 pm Post subject: |
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Providing I am right in the analysis of the problem of unresolved references I am facing here :
https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-808057-highlight-.html
The above configuration (with the symlinks) appears over-stupid ! At least non-functional !
It appears I would better do things like this :
mount -o bind /UsrOpt/usr /usr |
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NeddySeagoon Administrator
Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Posts: 54578 Location: 56N 3W
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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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aCOSwt,
I would use lvm. I assume you are using this somewhat strange partition layout becuase you need more than 15 partitions or you feel the need to resize things "on the fly".
lvm copes with all of these things. On the down side, its another layer of software between you and your platters. _________________ Regards,
NeddySeagoon
Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail. |
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aCOSwt Bodhisattva
Joined: 19 Oct 2007 Posts: 2537 Location: Hilbert space
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Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject: |
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NeddySeagoon wrote: | ...this somewhat strange partition layout... |
Thanks for your advice regarding lvm NeddySeagoon.
I will report here neither the reasons for not using lvm nor the rationale behind my somewhat strange... as well as... somewhere stupid layout...
I would get banned for writing in this thread things that would better fit in gentoo's chat... |
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ITAFurla n00b
Joined: 19 Feb 2009 Posts: 18 Location: Italy
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Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 11:30 am Post subject: 4 primary partitions |
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Hi all!!
I recently bought a new laptop (hp dv6-2006el) with the intention of install gentoo in dual boot with windows7.
Surprise! there are already 4 primary partitions!!
in the order:
"System",
"(C: )",
"Recovery (D: )",
"HP_tools".
Now the question is:
how can I create another primary partition, set it as extended and put one of these in a secondary partition?
Other questions when this is solved.
P.S.: I hope my english can be understood _________________ There are 10 kind of people: who know the binary code and who not! |
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