Get help on partitioning here [Part 2]

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:58 pm Post subject:

Hi and welcome to the forums.

You question is at least a bit cryptic! Are you asking about the Gentoo documentation? If so, you should start by reading the Gentoo Handbook. As you can see on that link, the Guide has been translated into several languages. If you want to, you can also read the remaining installation documents.
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Deathwing00 · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:07 pm Post subject:

Part 1 of this topic was split: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-188770.html

XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

I see a couple of posts on here with people with /boot of 500 MB why? that's insane. I only have 9MB used in my /boot, and the partition is only 32MB. also see people here use df a lot. try du -sh on a directory to find out how much is being used. on large directories this may take a while so be patient. oh and puting /usr/portage as it's own directory is rumored to speed up emerge's and sync and such. see https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=3011240#3011240 for advanced ext3 configuration.

Fated.Design · n00b Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 18

I am new to gentoo and linux in general. It seems I have something set incorrectly.
I am installing from the 2005.1 Universal CD installation with the stage 3 tar. Is there something i am missing?
I have formatted the drives for ext2 on the /gentoo/boot, the swap on its own partition, and ext3 for /gentoo

My partition table is set up with the following layout:

Device | Boot | Start | End | Blocks | Id | System
/hdb1 * 1 62 497983+ 83 Linux
/hdb2 63 124 498015 82 Linux /Swap
/hdb3 125 4870 38122245 83 Linux

I try to use the "tar" command to extract the tar file, after a few seconds of extracting it states:

./usr/shar/console/fonts/Goha-14.psfu.gz: Cannot Write: No space left on device
tar: Skipping to next header
tar: A lone zero block at 199628
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

I just want the most basic setup, as I am just trying to learn some linux and gentoo.

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:25 am Post subject:

Hi and welcome to the forums.

Please look at the output of

Fated.Design · n00b Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 18

when i run:

Fated.Design · n00b Joined: 13 Jan 2006 Posts: 18

Geez im lame. I just forgot to use:

jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:18 am Post subject:

XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

um... since when does the order of option's matter?
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jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:31 am Post subject:

XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

sorry no I missed that... my bad I just glanced quick. it happens.
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jmbsvicetto · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:45 am Post subject:

Gamakichi · Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:44 pm Post subject: Yay for n00bism...

Anyway, a couple partition questions:

1. If I'm dual or tri-booting all *NIX OSes, do I need seperate boot partitions for each?
I.E.:
/dev/hda1 = /boot for Gentoo
/dev/hda2 = /boot for FreeBSD
/dev/hda3 = /boot for Kanotix

2. I wanted to put /boot, swap, /var, and /tmp on hda and / on hdb, but after installing, I got errors on mounting /var and /tmp as well as /boot doesn't mount automatically at all... do /var and /tmp need to bed primary partitions?

And maybe someone can give me some suggestions as to what options /var and /tmp need in fstab.

ajosephm13 · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

Hello to all here on the forums! This thread looks like quite the partitioning party.

Here's my situation. I'm a college student who's used DOS/Windows all his life, and has recently begun to be exposed to the beauty that is Linux. I talked to some colleagues of mine and they suggested to learn the most, try Gentoo. So here I am. My use of Linux will mostly be for software development purposes, sshd, and maybe some web hosting for my own stuff. The last part is optional and might not happen for a while. I've been reading up on your forums, and I get the gist of it, but I really don't know, given my pre-specified use of the system, what I should be doing size-wize. I am a security nut, so the more secure the better. I definitely want a separate /home partition because who knows what could happen, and I'd really like my system in tact. It will be dual-booted with Windows, and Windows is my primary operating system. Windows has 50 GB, and i have 10 GB left. I am also the only user of the machine, so I won't be having loads and loads of different users. Probably just a couple.

System Specs:
Intel Pentium M 1.7 GHz
512 MB of RAM
60 GB HDD, (50 GB for windows)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
PCMCIA slot
Realtek AC'97 Audio
Sony CD-RW CRX830E

If you need any more info, let me know. I'll be checking back a lot.
Thanks in advance for your help!
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wrc1944 · Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 10:05 pm Post subject:

Considering the fact that you only have 10GB free space, and will need /boot, /, swap, and /home partitions, and also considering the fact that you don't want each of /boot, /, and /home completely filled up (less than 80% on a partition is recommended for healthy systems), you might consider a binary distro, instead of Gentoo.

By it's nature, Gentoo requires considerably more room than most binary distros. You might be able to do OK with Gentoo if you just want a decent full featured basic install (even with kde and gnome), and don't expect to be installing too many other extra applications.

You will want to keep your /usr/portage/distfiles directory pared down to a reasonable size, depending on your internet connection speed. Among others, especially clean out your /var/tmp/portage directory regularly (Gentoo's compiling work directory)- it can quickly use up 2-3GB of disk space if you have failed emerges.

For a basic general install with only 10GB, I'd recommend something like:

/boot 50mb
/swap 500mb (depending on your amount of ram)
/ 6-7GB
/home All the rest- if you need more reduce / a bit.

If you want to use the reiserfs file system on your partitions, know that it does fragment over time badly, and there is no defrag program as in windows. You have to copy all the data off the partitions and reformat them, and if you don't have a large spare partition to do this with, or a dvd burner, it's a huge problem. It's better to use a tuned ext3 system with dir_index set- It's performance is outstanding (equal to or better than reiserfs), and it handles fragmentation drastically better. The default ext3 file system partition options suffer from degraded performance for desktop systems, so look at the ext3 tips thread on the forum for details.

If you could possibly reclaim 5-10GB more of unused free space from your windows partition, you should consider a more sophisticated partitioning scheme than described above, maybe putting /var, /tmp, and /usr/portage on their own partitions for better performance.

I'd suggest reading up some on file systems and partition usage before installing- getting it right first is far better than realizing later on you made some mistakes, and wishing you had set it up differently.
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XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

I would suggest having a block size no large than 1024 that will help save space. I've had it drop gigs it might decrease some performance but... I don't think that much.
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ajosephm13 · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

Thank you, wrc1944 for your wonderfully descriptive reply! It was very informative. Let's say that I can get my hands on PartitionMagic, and give 7 or so gigs to the Linux portion (by taking it away from the Windows portion). Will this open up the opportunity for something more sophisticated? If so, what can I be looking at? And what makes this more sophisticated partition scheme better?

Thanks!
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XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

careful with partition magic it's ext2/ext3 support may not (I don't think it is) be up to date with the current version of ext2/3 and it doesn't support other fs's at all. I think there is a way to resize the ext2/3 part's from inside linux but I'm not sure... I'll ask on the ext3 tips thread...
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ajosephm13 · n00b Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 3

xenoterracide,

thank you for the concern, and thank you for the post before. It should be ok cause I haven't installed Gentoo yet. Right now it's just Windows XP (NTFS) and blank space on the HDD. So I don't think that filesystems will matter. Am I correct?
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XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

no... but I would reformat the linux ones after you resize your partition's... I know I tried to remove a partition with partition magic earlier. partition magic thought it was ext2. it actually hadn't been formatted yet... and partition magic yelled at me and said it couldn't do it (doesn't work with this version). but partition magic is perfect for resizing ntfs partion's... or even the extended partition...
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XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

and you really don't want to have to run a fsck later... oh and you might want to look at the ext3 tips thread. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-305871-highlight-ext3.html
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aebz · Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 1:59 pm Post subject:

XenoTerraCide · Veteran Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 1418 Location: MI, USA

you have to mount it in a special way for user's to be able to write to it. I forget the proper way.
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wrc1944 · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:56 pm Post subject:

ajosephm13,
Sorry I haven't replied in a few days- I've somehow lost the email notification for replies on this thread.

I'd probably question using an NTFS or FAT32 partition for a shared /home as another poster mentioned. You would lose the advantages of Linux partitions, and also might open your /home partition up to potential virus, spyware, and other attacks. Also consider that Linux writing to NTFS partitions isn't currently foolproof, and you might run into problems. On the other hand, windows can't see Linux partitions- but IIRC, I think there might be a way to read ext2/3 partitions.

If you must share data between Linux and windows, a /data FAT32 partition might be a better idea. I'm not really up on this aspect to the degree you probably need, but perhaps your windows anti-virus software might cover any windows partition you might have- others will know more than me on this subject.

If you reclaim disk space from your windows partition, be sure and thoroughly defrag it before rersizing, so as not to lose any data at the end of the partition.

Your partitioning scheme is very flexable, depending on your own needs, so It's difficult to suggest one other than general usage. With Gentoo, it's a bit different from other distros due to the compiling constantly being done when you emerge sync (of course that's user controlled- how often you sync and update is entirely up to you). Many Gentoo users like to put portage, /var, and /tmp on their own partitions, for better performance and to reduce the fragmentation of the / partition. This is due to the constand read/write/delete activity on these partitions.

One other consideration- if you are going to add 2 more users besides yourself, you will definitely need at least 1-2GB for each one on /home, so take that into account when creating your /home partition.
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Crete · n00b Joined: 26 Feb 2005 Posts: 54 Location: Kansas City

Does anyone ever have any strange effects on windows when you dual partition your hd? I have had some oddities. My music is freaking out in windows. You can tell the comp is trying to play it at double time and it's causing a freezing up the comp at that point. Same is happening with video games that are mildly complex games. This started happening when I set up a dual partion with Windows and Yoper. I have been wanting to get into gentoo for a long time, but I cant seem to get windows to opertate correctly at this point so if anyone has any ideas of what I may have done wrong please let me know that way I can get that fixed and move onto Gentoo post haste.
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