First time with Linux and Gentoo, partitioning question

qelliott · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Posts: 4

:The KungFoo RoadMap Part 1:

Please excuse some of the beginner questions, I have used OS X exclusively after my tribulations with Win 95, and, feel I am finally ready to compile my own custom version of linux. Or rather, to teach myself linux once and for all. OS X seems to sanitize the process, so aside from basic commands through the CLI/ terminal I have yet to grasp some elements.

REAL QUICK:
What are ?var? and ?bin? commonly used for? They remain hidden in my OS X partition so I would like to be sure as to their proper use.

On to the Install:

Boot Disk: GentooPPC 1.2r1

So I?m obviously n00b to the linux game, but OS X should help a bit, in terms of me visualizing how the partitions are laid out, and how files and folders fit into the larger hierarchy.

Question: The FAQ states I use at least 3 partitions. I am using what it terms a ?new world? machine (white iBook).

Partitions are:
Boot- for you know?.
Swap- where programs can be staged/ paged if physical RAM runs out
Root- for my file system and user settings/directories.

What am I missing or unclear on?

ALSO:
>How do I make room for my OS X install (of course I will want to keep 10.2 and try out MOL).

With a 10 gig Drive will there be enough to go around between gentoo and OS X or will I be stretching space thinly?

My main concern is enough room for downloads and programs all the way around.

Anyone who has experience, I would appreciate anything you could suggest or point me to.

With 256mb RAM and a 10gig HD what is a good partition scheme?
OR (option B) I could somehow install this on a firewire HD (30 gig).

End part 1
Thank you!

qelliott · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Posts: 4

mods, if this is OT or 'RTFM' please feel free to lock/remove this topic

qelliott · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Posts: 4

guys sorry for the obvious post! I've found some fantastic advice on exactly this procedure from this URL: http://www.desertsol.com/~kevin/ppc/

i guess that just leaves me wondering about the best way to dice up my 10gig drive, and another little bit of explanation about why it is best to separate my stuff in partitions as in the above example...

the above example does separate the boot,swap, and general stuff. but then there are tons of others as well up to /hda12.

slowly gaining knowledge!!

thanks for putting up with the posts

jimlynch11 · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2003 5:14 am Post subject:

what i would do is boot to the live cd, from there you can use mac-fdisk to partition the drive

the first partition should be the boot partition and around 100 MB or so (file system type ext2 or ext3 ( i use ext3)
this will become /dev/hda4
second is the swap partition and should be roughly twice the amount of your physical ram
this will become /dev/hda5
last is your home parition, which should be the remainder of your drivespace...format this as ext3
this will become /dev/hda6

check out this link and it should spell everything out better for you:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-ppc-install.xml

stamasd · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Posts: 31

IMHO, the partitioning scheme for the 10G drive should be largely determined by the amount of time that you intend to spend in OSX and Linux, respectively. For instance, I'm right now in the process of installing Gentoo on a 9G drive, together with OS9 (my machine, a 7600, will not run OSX, even with XPostFacto). For Linux I made a 150M partition (/dev/sda4) for swap, and a 5.6G partition for root (/dev/sda5). The remainder of the disk (/dev/sda6), 2.9G is dedicated to OS9. This particular machine will spend most of the time in Gentoo, with some (rare) reboots to OS9.

The way I did the partitioning was: boot from a second hard disk that had OS 8.6 on it and use Drive Setup to create 2 partitions: a 6G and a 2.9G. Installed OS9 on the 2.9G, then used BootX to start the Gentoo install (you'll notice that this is an oldworld machine, so this doesn't apply to you - also, the reason why I didn't make a /boot partition since I have to use BootX and copy the kernel to the OS9 partition anyway). When booted into the live CD, I used mac-fdisk to delete the 6G partition, and make in the empty place 2 new partitions, a 150M and a 5.6G as I mentioned before. Now, for the size of the swap partition, in my experience from using Linux on x86 for many years, the "2x amount of physical memory" applies only if you have 64M RAM or below; basically, there's no reason to increase the swap partition above 128-150M because it's inefficient. If you need more, you're better off by increasing the physical RAM in your machine. However, YMMV.

Also note that I use a SCSI drive, not IDE, therefore I refer to the partitions as /dev/sda instead as /dev/hda.

To answer your other question:
/bin is used for system-wide binaries, such as ls, dd, etc. It should be populated by the OS installer, and (unless installing something very basic) not be touched afterwards.
/var is used for "various" stuff, such as logs, printer queues, etc. All of these are usually managed directly by the OS, so again there's really no reason for an user to touch them (except for reading logs when needed).

zojas

to quote the install guide about the '3 partitions':

qelliott · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2003 Posts: 4

Just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone in this forum. Ive had forrays into technical stuff like this in the past, but you have all gone out of your way to give me the chunky goodness that is your valuable advice. Thanks for being a great community and not those other guys who chant RTFM.

you have no idea how great that is really!

Q