Partitioning advice

[mivo]

What is the recommended partition layout for a machine with 1 GB RAM (might add a second one, but uncertain) and a 250 GB disk? I assume 10 GB for "/" (or 15, just in case?)? "Swap" (how much?) and everything else for "home"? I was considering a separate "data" partition for "static" data such as audio and video files or CD images, but I can't gauge how much room I'll need for "home" over time, so perhaps just three partitions is a better approach? Should the swap partition directly follow the root one?

Thank you.

[Jay_Jay]

Re: Partitioning advice

Yeah you're right: 10GB for your "/" partition and as for the Swap, 2GB would be more than sufficient. I'm not sure about what to suggest for your "home" partition as my "/" and "home" are within the same location. Perhaps one of the others will have a better idea about this.

I was considering a separate "data" partition for "static" data such as audio and video files or CD images

Good idea: my Laptop HDD has two separate FAT32 "data" partitions that I use for storing A/V files and I've done this for years with all my machines regardless of the OS.

but I can't gauge how much room I'll need for "home" over time, so perhaps just three partitions is a better approach?

Look at your HD size and ask yourself how much would you want to allocate for things like the "static" data partition, will you be downloading lots of torrents? You might want to include another partition for those and is Kubuntu going to be your sole OS - will you want to dual boot to another distro etc?

[Snowhog]

Re: Partitioning advice

Pyschocats How should I partition my drive?

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

Thanks for the link!

I'm still a little confused or, rather, undecided. I think my previous FreeBSD experience (several years ago) contributes to that.

What I would ideally like is a "snappy" system that won't be completely unusable if "something happens", that is somewhat secure, and that can easily be upgraded. The suggestions I have seen for the size of /usr all seem in the "a few GB" range. But this is where the program files go, correct? Basically similar to "Program Files" in XP? That folder is 33 GB on my XP system, so just a few GB seems relatively small.

The thing is, I don't really have a good idea how much space I will need. The disk is 250 GB, so if I partition poorly, I might "waste" tens of GBs of space. So maybe just 10 GB for /root, 1-2 GB for /swap, and the rest together on one partition? Or just /swap and everything else? I have several gigabytes of mail, and news (usenet).

Is fragmentation a problem in Linux? I vaguely recall that it wasn't, but don't remember details. Just wondering if that is something I should consider when trying to figure out how to partition the disk. Are there performance concerns regarding different partition layouts?

(Am I just worrying too much? )

[dibl]

Re: Partitioning advice

Am I just worrying too much?

Yes.



Set 6Gb for "/"

Set 0.5GB for swap

Set the rest of what you have available for "/home" (your data and settings).

No, fragmentation is not a problem. If you want good filesystem performance, at the cost of slow boots, use reiserfs like I do. It can take a power outage or other hard reboot better than the alternatives.

Two cents worth (or less) ....

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

Okay, okay, I am convinced! I'll go with 10 GB for /, some swap, and the rest for /home. I read about the possibility of resizing partitions without data loss, and that made me breathe easier. I can't mess this up even if / threatens to run out space!

Tomorrow, my day off, I'm going to ditch Windows for good and switch to Kubuntu/Linux. I considered a dual-boot solution, but frankly, in the end that will only drag out a real change and cause additional hassles and "should I, should I not" headaches. Fifteen years of Windows are enough, and I simply am not inclined to upgrade to Vista. I planned this for five years now.

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

So, I jumped in the cold water today and wiped Windows off my disk. I do have some issues with the Kubuntu installation now, though. The "default" install worked, but I seem to be unable to manually partition my disk. If anyone would like to help, I posted a thread about the problem here: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3086661.0

[Objekt]

Re: Partitioning advice

Silly question: How do I know which setup I have?

As I've posted in a recent thread, I have one hard drive, an 80 GB IDE/PATA drive, completely dedicated to Kubuntu 7.04. My memory of how exactly partitioning went during install is fuzzy, but here's what I have (and can see in Win XP, thanks to that nifty Ext2IFS utility) on my Linux volume:

54.9 GB "Linux"
2.4 GB "Linux Swap"

System has 1 GB physical RAM, so I guess that swap size is about right.

I'm confused about this "/" partition of which you speak. It sounds like a great idea, having a separate partition for all my settings etc. (as suggested on Psychocat's page, linked above). But is "/" just the main Linux partition I now have, or something I need to create?

Setting up a separate partition for "home," containing lots of static data files, also sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Also, I have many files stored on NTFS volumes (other hard disks) that I would like to access from within Kubuntu.

Seems like NTFS-3G is in my future, once I get an idea what the heck I'm doing in Kubuntu, specifically how to install things.

(Posted while running Win XP, since I'm still in the "accidentally breaking things" stage with Kubuntu )

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

I'm brand-new to Linux (well, more or less!), so take this with a grain of salt.

The / partition is basically "everything" except what you mount on a different partition. I have / on a small partition and /home uses the rest of the disk (minus 1 GB for /swap). On /home, all your personal files are kept: songs, videos, mail, photos, bookmarks, and all of your individual setting. In /, the system files. logs. program files (basically what "Program Files" is in Windows, just that Linux programs seem to take up much less space).

The advantage of a setup like this is that you can easily re-install the OS (in /) without losing your personal files and settings. If you only have / and swap, and you need to reinstall or format, your personal files are likely to be affected as well. Installing Kubuntu took me only about an hour, and maybe another to select and download the programs I wanted. The configuration of the programs, putting back my files from backup media, importing mail, etc. took an entire day. So I'm glad I went with a separate home partition.

After installing a number of applications and the system, I still have only used 3 of 10 GB of the / partition (and 75 of 235 GB on the /home partition), which really surprised me. I'm glad I only made it 10 GB and not 20.

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

Oh, and installing things: I just use Adept. K-Menu button ("Start" ) -> System, -> Adept Manager. Then you can put in the search field what you are looking for. Clicking on results gives you a description, and then you can request an install (after this you need to click on the "Apply Changes" button). Can't help with good info on how to access a NTFS partition, though. My NTFS drive is external, and after mounting it I could access the files (read only, though) without installing anything. If I were you, I would try to mount the NTFS partition somewhere and see if you can access it in Konqueror or Dolphin (in the "Cold Turkey" thread below I posted how I mounted my external drive - was advice from a friend, not something I knew).

[fleamailman]

Re: Partitioning advice

hi mivo and everyone, I have been following this thread with interest trying to make a rule of thumb for myself, I work with the low end(small, oldish laptops) so this large end stuff is unclear to me, once again please with high end large machines(desktops, lots of power, big harddrive, etc.,) what should be the harddrive breakdown here

mivo, curiousity again, are you happy with the result

thanks

[eriefisher]

Re: Partitioning advice

This how I'm set up:

/-10gig-actually using 4gig
/swap-1gig--system has 2gig swap never used
/home--30gig for system config file only could probably be just 10gig
/MY_stuff--The rest of the disc-I link the folder in /home to access them easy

eriefisher

[dibl]

Re: Partitioning advice

I have it like this (about the fourth installation in a year -- I'm getting better ....)

"/" = 6GB, currently shows 2.6GB free space
"swap" = 0.5GB, has never shown any use whatsoever
"/home" = the rest of a 150GB WD Raptor drive

I have 4GB of RAM, which may explain why swap never gets used.

8)

[mivo]

Re: Partitioning advice

mivo, curiousity again, are you happy with the result

It is still early, but so far I'm very satisfied with the 10 GB for /, 1 GB for swap (I have 1 GB RAM, might upgrade to 2 GB, but I'm not doing anything that is very memory intensive -- just typical office stuff, watching the occasional movie, a little programming in Ruby, SSH to talk to my employer's server, etc., so right now, and unlike under Windows, I don't see the need to upgrade, but maybe KDE4 will be more demanding), and the rest is for /home

It helped to learn that you can use a tool like GParted to resize the partitions without losing data if you make a wrong choice.

But most everyone here has way more experience than I do! So far, though, I'm happy with the decision to migrate to Linux. The box almost feels like a new computer. (it is three years old, not really high-end anymore!)

[monte48lowes]

Re: Partitioning advice

Can I drop my $0.02 (that's 2 cents verizon)

Use gparted to manually partition the drives.

The first partition should be the swap since it will be located closer to the edge of the physical disc (the closer to the edge the faster the disc moves past the head) resulting in faster read/write times.

The second partition should be '/', again closer to the edge (this could also be '/usr' if you like followed by '/') same reasons as above, these directories get accessed more frequently.

The final partition should be '/home' (or '/home' then an additional partition for static data).

I got this idea from Computer Power User magazine from years ago.

Mike