partition sizes

tukem · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:57 am Post subject: partition sizes

Hi everybody

Could somebody tell me what kind of directory sizes should I expect when using both 64- and 32-bit software? I don't want to make my partitions overly large.

Deranger · Veteran Joined: 26 Aug 2004 Posts: 1215

It depends what you are going to do with your system.

tukem · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:40 am Post subject:

heh two finns talking in english...

Well yes naturally it matters what the system is used for. The plan is to use it for "ordinary" desktop work. So no big databases or stuff like. I was thinking of using Xfce if I get it to work. For some programs I propably need some KDE and Gnome libs.

As I understand there are three ways to run software:
1. 64-bit
2. 32-bit
3. 32-bit in chroot
Is this correct? The chroot part is the one that troubles me as it means spending a fair amount of space. So what is the current situation? On my old machine 5 GB for /usr was plenty if I didn't gather too many kernel sources to /usr/src and emptied /usr/portage/distifiles once in a while. /usr/lib tends to get pretty big too but that can't be helped. How much extra will I need for running 32- AND 64-bit software.

fjf3 · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 31

How about using LVM and start low?

Before you get mad at me, I didn't have good luck with LVM and amd64. I got it working on my 32bit athlon though it was not trivial. With a bit of work it can be made to work. It is not the most horrendous non standard setup you can do. I would recommend it.

tukem · Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:48 am Post subject:

Hmm... I have never tried LVM but of course that is possible too. Getting it to work on amd64 might be a challenge though as you say you didn't succeed. I'll have to check it out...

Tsonn · Guru Joined: 03 Jun 2004 Posts: 550

You can run some 32-bit software without a chroot; anything that's statically compiled, or anything you can supply with 32-bit libraries. The emul-* packages help with this.

For maximum ease of use, though, a 32-bit chroot is helpful. You can share quite a few directories using mount --bind: /tmp, /home, /usr/portage. But the chroot will need a full base installation (gcc, portage, etc), an X installation, and all relevant libraries.

It's a little hard for me to give you my chroot size because it counts everything that's mounted under the chroot, too, and I don't have it on a separate partition. But my 32-bit usr directory has about 3Gb of files.

So, if you do want to have a 32-bit chroot as well... you'll need basically double the disk space. Apart from that, disk requirements will be basically what you're used to.
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