ReiserFS or XFS: 2 hdd's w/ Gentoo + WinXP

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

I will be installing Gentoo tomorrow, and I'd like to design the perfect filesystem structure for my system. Here is what I have so far, I just need to fill in the blanks:

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60 GB hd on Master
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WinXP -- NTFS -- 15GB
Unformatted -- 45GB
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80 GB hd on Slave
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Unformatted -- 80GB
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I plan on using either ReiserFS or XFS. I want to use the filesystem that best suites my needs: this computer will be a desktop for gaming, tinkering, learning, coding and so on... it's not a server.

I hear that ext3 or ext2 should be used for /boot.
I hear that ReiserFS is good for small files and had some problems with data loss that was straitened out with the latest kernels.
I hear that XFS is good for transfering large files, and was very slow at deleting files but the problem was fixed in 1.1. Now it is up to 1.3 or something.

I want to set up my partitions so that:
I use the best filesystems for my needs on each partition
I use the best location on each drive for maximum performance (example- swap partiton willl be on a drive that is mostly idle)
I do not experience problems with data loss by using XFS or ReiserFS, especially in /boot

I've heard a lot about partition structures, and it seems that everyone has something different to say.[/list]

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

So do you think you 1337 exp3rts could help me fill in some of the blanks?

tphamm · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:19 pm Post subject:

I'm not sure that I (or anyone, but maybe someone will prove me wrong

) can tell you the ideal filesystem to use. Generally, you're probably safe using either ext3 or reiserfs for all your partitions. Personally, I've never experienced any data loss from reiserfs, and I've been using it for about 3 years now. But if you're unsure, go with ext3. I also use XFS on my 120 GB drive, which is used for MythTV recordings.

As you've said, it is probably a good idea to setup your swap partition on your most idle drive. But if you have a lot of RAM, it probably won't make that much difference. I don't have much other advice on the partitions, except that if you know which of your two drives gives the best read/write performance, that's where you'd probably want to place your /home, /var, and other more active partitions.

You might find this page and this page helpful in selecting filesystems.
_________________
"This is a UNIX system! I know this!" -- little girl from dinasaur park

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

Thank you. I am already pretty much set on ReiserFS. Now that you said something about using XFS for video, I think I will do that too (for game trailers and such).

For Gentoo, would you recommend using seperate paritions for things like /usr and /var? I know I will do it for /home/

And are you sure it is safe to put /boot on the same partition as / \ using ReiserFS?

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

How is this:

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60 GB hd on Master
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WinXP -- NTFS -- 18GB
/video --XFS-- 40GB
Linux Swap -- 2GB (twice my RAM size)
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80 GB hd on Slave
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/ -- ReiserFS -- 40GB
/home -- ReiserFS -- 40GB
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tphamm · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 8:55 pm Post subject:

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

In the past, I've had problems where I had Redhat and Slackware on the same computer and had them share a home partition. As soon as I logged on as user other than root in graphical mode, my session crashed. This happened in both Redhat and Slackware.

If you know what the problem was and how to fix it, I might want to install both Slack and Gentoo...

tphamm · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject:

Not sure if this is what you mean, but I've had problems in the past with NFS-mounted home directories, where trying to log in to some machines would cause me to get kicked back to the login prompt. This was often caused by incorrect permissions on my home directory as seen by the host (ie, the UID for my login between hosts were different). Keeping the user login entries in the /etc/passwd files sync'd between the different distros should prevent this.
_________________
"This is a UNIX system! I know this!" -- little girl from dinasaur park

routerguy · Guru Joined: 07 Feb 2004 Posts: 462

Yes, I believe that was the problem. No matter, I really don't know why I would need 2 distros that do essensially the same thing.

The only thing is that Gentoo is very young (I think?), and Slack is very old and therefore stable. The reason I switched is because Slack dosn't have anything close to portage for doing it's package managment.

Viha

I have been using XFS on my boot partition ever since I first installed Gentoo (and Linux). No problems there, it works fine with Grub.