Get help on partitioning here [Part 1]

PsychoJKL · n00b Joined: 08 May 2004 Posts: 57

MOD EDIT: Follow up Part 2 of this thread: Get help on partitioning here [Part 2]
-- Deathwing00

Hey all. I am new to linux. I have been using Red Hat 9 for the past few months since there is so much information at the library on it. I am wanting to prepare my computer for a Gentoo x86 installation.

So heres my question.

I have 2 80 GIG hardrives. On 1 hard drive i want to install Gentoo, and on the other id like to put on windows XP (for gaming).

what partitions do i need to make for the linux Hard Drive? just 2 partitions? 1 for swap space, and the rest for linux? and how exactly should i lable the partitions

also, can i install Gentoo AFTER the windows isntallation on the other hard drive?

thank you in advance for all the help.

peterton · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 20 Aug 2003 Posts: 110

actually, I find installing Linux after Windows the easiest.

all my (simple) installs have a /boot, swap and / partition (in that order) of, respectively, 16MB, 512MB and *MB

having a seperate /boot comes from the old days when LILO didn't boot kernels beyond the 1023rd sector. I like it because it prevents me from accidently removing kernels. :roll:

oh yeah, a seperate /home is sometimes nice as well. when reinstalling you can keep your personal files. on 80 GB I suggest 10 for / and * for /home, maybe even 15 for / - I really don't use that much.

ultraslacker · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 3:46 pm Post subject:

/boot is usually read only, so having it on a separate partition makes sense and prevents user error...unless you are me and routinely do stupid stuff. A week ago I did 'rm -rf /tmp' and promptly rebooted. I still don't know what I was thinking...

I like to have /home on it's own partition - on my system, that's the area that gets the most activity, so if something goes wrong there it doesnt affect the root.

Lajasha · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:57 pm Post subject:

The partitions you use for your box will depend on what you plan on doing with it. You will need a /, swap, /boot, however anything beyond this is optional. I tend to create a /www partition since I have a web-server on mine and can keep the files isolated from everything else incase of a reinstall etc.
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thechris · Veteran Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Posts: 1203

and i use kernel based RAID. i have a /home/documents partition set up as raid1 so that important docs are safer from disk failure.

i always suggest having a /home or such partition. just some way to keep the OS and data seperate in case the OS breaks or you choose to install a different OS.

ShadowHawkBV · Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 352

My suggestion is: Install Windows on 40Gig or so of the first hardrive. use the last half of the first hd as the /home.

On the second hardrive, /boot(45Meg), /swap (2X Ram-- I know others will debate the need for this), / (25Gig), /usr(+/-40Gig), /var(10 Gig), /tmp(2 Gig), /opt (51GiG). Take space for /usr or / for creating a webserver, or any other drive that will be accessed a lot.

Just my 2 cents (With taxes I think I owe 4 cents.)
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wrepti · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 44

You don't really need a /boot partition. I didn't use one because I already had 3 partitions on my disk (Windows, Swap, another LInux) and I didn't want to mess with logical partitons. You have to set up your grub/lilo differently than the defaults in the installation guide, though.

thechris · Veteran Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Posts: 1203

have you also looked into kernel raid? definately a little more challenge. you can set up some partitions for speed, but don't have to. it definately adds options.

ShadowHawkBV · Guru Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 352

Deathwing00 · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 9:05 pm Post subject:

MOD EDIT: Additional information on how to make partitions and the recommended sizes:

Threads with useful information, but locked:

-- Deathwing00 (made sticky)

Dr Evil · n00b Joined: 25 Jan 2004 Posts: 41

spudicus · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2004 3:10 pm Post subject:

I like to break my partitions up a fair bit for security/reliability.

I agree with peterton, that it's easier to install windows first. Windows requires some of it's boot info to be at the start of the disk (I'm not talking about the MBR), so having it at hda1 makes things neater and easier. Also, Linux can handle dual boots a lot better than Windows, so installing it after, lets it sort things out rather than letting Windows stuff things up.

It's definitely a good idea to have a seperate /boot partition, and set it to not mount at boot. This helps lower the possibility of filesystem corruption, and therefore still giving you a kernel to boot off, if/when something does go wrong.

You can also have a really big swap partition (e.g. 1-2gigs), and have /tmp mount on it using tmpfs, and therefore killing two birds with one stone. It's also a good idea to have your swap at the beginning of the harddrive to increase access times.

Having a seperate /home is also recommended for the reasons stated previously. Doing a reinstall and finding that all your user settings (e.g. browser/mail/bashrc/ad nauseum) are still configured, is very satisfying!!

Having seperate /var, /usr and /tmp etc. partitions allows you to prevent device creation/suid etc on those partitions, and can also add to reliability.

My partition table (for a 60 gig hardrive) is:

Ben2040 · Guru Joined: 07 May 2003 Posts: 445 Location: UK

Hi

My partition setup works well - I'm on an Athlon64 -

gizmol · n00b Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 10 Location: Belgium

Hi!

I'm using winXP, but would like to explore linux for first time.
I would like to be able to get a choice between XP and gentoo at startup. This is a "dualboot", right?

My harddisk is 30GB. Using fdisk /dev/hda at the prompt after booting with the LiveCD, i get the following:

Lajasha · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 7:45 pm Post subject:

5 Gigs should be enough to take gentoo for a spin.

As far as the grub.conf I think you would want it as follows

gizmol · n00b Joined: 21 Jun 2004 Posts: 10 Location: Belgium

Thanks for quick reply!

(hd0,1) ... off course my mistake, boot partition will indeed be /dev/hda2

As for the partitions. Deleting all but the first (the one with xp) and adding
hda2: boot (32M)
hda3: swap (512M, which is also my amount of RAM)
hda4: the rest of the space

won't mess up my hard drive??
And will this (in addition to the bootloader you corrected) give me the ability to choose between the 2 OS at startup???

Lajasha · Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2004 8:23 pm Post subject:

Yea deleting the extra partitions will not have an effect on windows as long as there is no system info on them. As for the boot loader yes once you get gentoo installed you will be able to pick the os you want to load and even the default OS to load.
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ParaDockS · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

What would be the best partition sizes for a computer with a 120GB HD and 512MB RAM?

Lajasha · Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2004 2:52 am Post subject:

Well, honestly that would depend on what you are going to do with it. If you can give some more info on its purpose we might be able to recommend something, along with there being alot of good info in this post regaurding sizes of partitions.
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ParaDockS · n00b Joined: 07 Jul 2004 Posts: 2

It's not going to be a server, just a multi-purpose workstation. eg. web browsing, text editing, photo and video editing, games, etc.

Abomination5 · n00b Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 11

My system is going to be a simple workstation(for now at least)...web, email, games, etc. I have 1GB of ram, do I really need a swap partition?

cryptodev · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 53

You should always have a swap partition even if it's small. Linux seems to cope better with at least some swap. I'm running a server with 2GB of RAM and made a 500MB swap partition. It never gets used, but it's a small amount of disk to sacrifice to ensure that Linux doesn't crap out on me.
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regnever · n00b Joined: 13 Dec 2003 Posts: 43 Location: Singapore

just a quick question... could I put the boot partition on a logical partition but not a primary one?

t3rm1nal · Apprentice Joined: 17 May 2004 Posts: 173 Location: US

Two questions:

1.) Is there a partition-magic like utility for linux?
2.) I need help with a partition table design... I've read up on some security docs and found:

aditsu · n00b Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 6