Good afternoon from New Zealand.

I currently run LinuxMINT.

My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
to do.

IDE drive - partition as follows:
/boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
/root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
/swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
/home/ext3 (balance of HD)

Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
it came from. Can someone explain, please?

SATA drive
/?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
music files/image files, if possible)

Now for the questions:

(1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
(2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
installation process?
(3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
installation?

It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
more than welcome.

And a last question.

In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge but
I don't want to get it wrong.

zed

On 23/06/2008 04:13, zed wrote:

> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)

yes

> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)

that's proably a bit small, unless you're going to install a minimal 
system, I'd go for 8-10GB.   or go for 4GB LV and leave some slack in 
your VG which you can allocate later.

> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)

OK

> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?

if you only want 4 partiions, make them all primary and you won't need 
an extended, it's a way of having more partiions by nesting them.

> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
> music files/image files, if possible)

any thought of using software raid on /boot and /root ?

also consider putting half the swap on each disk

> Now for the questions:
> 
> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?

Partitiong schemes are always up for argument ;-)

> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?
> (3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
> installation?

dunno what MINT allows, other distros allow you to customise multiple 
disks at install time, so it ought to.

> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
> more than welcome.
> 
> And a last question.
> 
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

dunne whether default of MINT is to wipe some/all/none existing 
partitions by default, but you ought to be able to leave /home alone in 
future

zed wrote:
> Good afternoon from New Zealand.

Have you checked out aus.computers.linux? It's fairly quiet most of the 
time, but there are quite a few helpful and knowledgeable people lurking 
there.

> I currently run LinuxMINT.
> 
> My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
> seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
> to do.
> 
> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)

Not "/boot/ext3". Just "/boot" - it's an ext3 filesystem.

50MB would be enough. My /boot currently contains 13MB and it's not 
likely ever to get to 50.

> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)

If you mean the root partition, that's just "/". /root is the 
administrator ("root") home directory and /root/ext3 is a subdirectory 
in root's home directory.

If you're talking about the root partition, then it's probably not 
enough. I normally use 15GB these days. It depends on what you end up 
installing etc, but it's very annoying running out of space in /.

> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)

Depending on what you use the system for, you probably don't really need 
any swap at all. Certainly not twice as much as the amount of RAM when 
you've got 2GB of the stuff. If i had 2GB on my personal system, i'd 
have a 2GB swap partition so i could suspend to disk if i wanted to, but 
i wouldn't use it for normal running (i.e., i'd comment it out in 
/etc/fstab) The system will be much more responsive without a swap 
partition.

> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)
> 
> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?

Dunno. Maybe mint automatically sets up everything except the root 
partition in an extended partition. RH/Fedora used to do that by 
default, i think. But i never let it automatically partition, so i don't 
know if it still does. Probably though.

Chances are, your existing system has / on a primary partition plus an 
extended partition with logical partitions inside it for /home, swap, etc.

> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
> music files/image files, if possible)

Depending on what you're doing, you may find you won't need to use it 
for a long time. 200GB is a fairly large amount of space. If you're 
storing movies - particularly if you're editing video in a fairly raw 
form, you'll eat it up quickly though.

If it was me, i think i'd feel inclined to leave the rest of drive one 
as unallocated space for future use and make the whole of drive two into 
/home. It's a bit irritating having files you're using every day 
scattered across two partitions/drives.

> Now for the questions:
> 
> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?
> (3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
> installation?

I'd probably use fdisk to parition the SATA drive after installation. 
But i can't see it really makes any difference which way you do it.

> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
> more than welcome.

I think it's best to keep it as simple as possible. A boot partition if 
necessary (which it probably isn't in your case), a root partition, swap 
space, and a /home partition are all you need. The more partitions 
you've got, the more space you waste.

> And a last question.
> 
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

Any decent distro should allow you to leave /home (or any other 
partition) in tact when you install it. If it doesn't allow that, then 
don't use it, cos there will most probably be other problems too!

> These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge but
> I don't want to get it wrong.

Don't worry about it. Nobody's born knowing this stuff!


-- 
http://SnapAndScribble.com

In article ,
zed   wrote:
>Good afternoon from New Zealand.
>
>I currently run LinuxMINT.
>
>My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
>seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
>to do.
>
>IDE drive - partition as follows:
>/boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
>/root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
>/swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
>/home/ext3 (balance of HD)
>
>Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
>it came from. Can someone explain, please?
>
>SATA drive
>/?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
>music files/image files, if possible)

There's been "holy wars" fought over more :)

My answer would be: "It Depends" ...

And a lot depends on your background - you're is fairly new, so you can
more or less do what you like with no "history" to bog you down. I've
been using unix and unix-like systems for just under 30 years now, so
part of how *I* partition a system is based on my own personal history.

Here's what I'd do...

1. Start from scratch.

/	256MB
swap	2 x RAM
/usr	4 GB
/home	Rest of disk. This is where you're going to store your music,
etc.

I'd partition both drives with the same number of sectors and use RAID-1
to mirror them.

Note: there's no /boot partition here. Why not? Well, the idea of a
/boot originates (I think) from the days when old PC BIOSes had a limit
to the number of cylinders they could access, so it was important to
make sure the linux kernel was inside that limit, so the idea of a small
/boot partition arose.

However, I have a separate /usr partition. Why? Because that's the way
it's always been (for me) In olden days you'd want to partition things
up to minimise "damage" caused should something go wrong - also disks
were small in those days, so it might not be uncommon for multiple
physical disks in a server rather than one big disks partitioned up.

I do it mostly from habit, but it's a trade-off with smaller disk
systems (not so much of an issue these days, but only a few years ago
disks were expensive)

And with 4 native partitions, root, swap, usr and /var (or /home) works
out OK, but the down-side of paritioning is that you have the potential
to waste disk space, so there is a temptation to just have one huge
partition...

Another consideration used to the be placement of the physical
partitions on the disks - although I suspect not many people care these
days... So you'll want swap in the middle of the disk with executables
either side to minimise head movement. But these days memory is cheap,
so not much excuse to not use it - but if you do have to swap, then
you'll want it as quick as possible.

>
>Now for the questions:
>
>(1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?

If it works for you, then use it.

>(2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
>installation process?
>(3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
>installation?

No idea - that depends on your distro.

>It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
>more than welcome.
>
>And a last question.
>
>In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
>the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
>procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

Again, it depends on your distro.

>These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge but
>I don't want to get it wrong.

At the end of the day, it's entirely up to you - if this is a home
system, then off you go, and if it works, then you've been successfull!

If you don't want to mirror the disks, then an alternative might be as I
suggested above, but put one big parittion on the 2nd disk and mount
that as /home, but it's then hard to find use for the left over (190GB)
space on the first disk. You could create (eg) /var/space and use that.
You can combine partition with the software RAID drivers, but then if
one disk fails you lose the lot...

Gordon

"zed"  wrote in message 
news:gemini.k2wbls006ac5c06e3.zed@zed.net.nz...
> Good afternoon from New Zealand.
>

My brother-and-sister-in-law from NZ are staying with us at the moment, they 
say it's getting pretty cold there, at least in Dunedin.

> I currently run LinuxMINT.
>

Never used it myself.

> My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
> seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would 
> like
> to do.
>
> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
Yes, though it's a small partition in a large drive so even if you doubled 
this size it wouldn't make much differenec overall.

> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
If you're using a graphical desktop under Xorg or Xfree86 it'd put at least 
10GB in this.

> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
Double the RAM amount is probably overkill (and no longer necessary) but 
it's a nice safe value.

> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)
>
> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea 
> where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?
>
Could it be an extended partition :-) i.e. one that will accept logical 
partitions? When you add up the sizes of all your partitions does it come to 
the size of the whole drive? Remember that to use an extended partition you 
have to create logical partitions within it.

> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all 
> my
> music files/image files, if possible)
>
I'd just call it "data" but then I have no imagination.

> Now for the questions:
>
> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
Not that I can see. You may want to create another partition for /var as a 
misbehaving program can fill your disk and it's better to fill /var than the 
root partition (I have first have first-hand experience of this).

> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?
Depend on Mint but you usually can.

> (3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
> installation?
>
Shouldn't think so but that's always an option, that or fdisk or half a 
dozen other utilities.

> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will 
> be
> more than welcome.
>
> And a last question.
>
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?
>
Just tell the installer that you already have a home partition and the you 
_do not_ want it to format it. Then you can carry your home directories from 
one distrbution to another. My current home directory has been through more 
installations than I care to remember!

> These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge 
> but
> I don't want to get it wrong.
>
Not banal at all, just the kind of question you would ask when doing this 
for the first time, but if you do get it wrong(*) there are usually ways to 
change things later - this isn't Windows! (However messing about with the 
size of partitions on a running system can be a PITA I will admit).

(*) - not sure that there is a wrong or right, whatever you choose you're 
likely to want to change it in the future, LVM or EVMS2 can be useful here 
but I'd keep things simple at the moment.

-- 
Geoff

zed wrote:
> Good afternoon from New Zealand.
> 
> I currently run LinuxMINT.
> 
> My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
> seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
> to do.
> 
> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)

If all the above are primary partitions, you won't be able add any more:
you can only have a maximum of 4 primary partitions. The alternative is
to create an extended partition which allows an unlimited number of
'logical' partitions.

As (some) others have said 4GB is overkill, but it's only 1% of your
total disk space so it doesn't really matter.

> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?

See above...

> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
> music files/image files, if possible)

What you name it doesn't matter a hoot to Linux ;)

I have a similar setup. All my Linux installs are on one disk and all my
data (inc. /home) are on the other. I have separate partitions for my
music and photos, which I then mount as /mnt/music and /mnt/photos. The
advantage of this is that all users have easy access to the media files
and makes backing-up easier (for me at least). Downsides are that you
need to think ahead of your space requirements for each partition. If
you run out of space too soon in a particular partition it could be a
PITA to sort out.

> Now for the questions:
> 
> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?

Nope, not really...

> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?

Probably, but can't say for certain with MINT. Even if you can't set-up
the SATA drive at the beginning it's easy to sort out after
installation. Just re-run Gparted...

> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
> more than welcome.

Now, that's just asking for trouble... ;)

> And a last question.
> 
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

I wouldn't recommend that you share your home partition with other
distros as the potential for cock-ups is too great. Esp. if you're just
trialling the other distros I would keep their /home with their '/'
partitions. If you still want access to your home and media partitions
you can quite easily mount them in the new installations.

> These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge but
> I don't want to get it wrong.

Not at all. It's best to get all the info at the start which then allows
you to make the best decisions for *your* system.

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:13:04 +1200, zed wrote:

> Good afternoon from New Zealand.
> 
> I currently run LinuxMINT.
> 
> My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
> seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
> to do.
> 
> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)
> 
> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?
> 
> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
> music files/image files, if possible)
> 
> Now for the questions:
> 
> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?
> (3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
> installation?
> 
> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will be
> more than welcome.
> 
> And a last question.
> 
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?
> 
> These questions must sound completely banal to those with more knowledge but
> I don't want to get it wrong.
> 
> zed

I'll put in my tuppenceworth.

I have a Mepis7 installation and since its not shared with anyone I found
having a big home partition a waste of time. Currently, (and I have a lot
of junk installed), it looks like this

root partition 8 GB - 2.6 GB used.

home partition 5 GB - 1 GB used - most of this in a .wine folder with lots
of crappy windoze stuff.

swap partition - like you I went for 2x memory = 2GB.  I have never seen
more than a tiny fraction of this used. Opened a monster size graphics
file once and I got up to 6% used. Dont really see the need for big swap
partitions when modern machines have large amounts of memory.

All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.

Upgrading - when I moved from mepis 6.5 to 7 it required a complete
reinstall. The home partition was backed up to one of the "data's" and
generally copied back, this saved all my mail, browser settings etc.,
although I had a bit of work to do putting some apps back into kmenu.

Final point. I do frequent backups, especially before I make any
significant change, using acronis truimage and a usb portable drive.
Currently backing up both the root and home partitions the images are
running at only 1.7 GB. Data gets backed up separately depending on
importance.

-- 
rich

On 2008-06-23, rich  wrote:

> All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
> editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
> a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.

Hmm, how big are your files?  ext3 can handle a file up to 2 terabytes
in size, although with a 1k block size it'll only handle 16 gigabytes
in a single file.

Or is there some other reason for using NTFS for large files?  I'd
have thought ext3 would be better as it's actually supported ;-)

-- 
Blast off and strike the evil Bydo empire!
http://youtube.com/user/tarcus69
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarcus/sets/

Geoffrey Clements  wrote:
>> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
> Not that I can see. You may want to create another partition for /var as a 
> misbehaving program can fill your disk and it's better to fill /var than the 
> root partition (I have first have first-hand experience of this).

Another few I always do are /tmp (for the same reason, misbehaving
programs filling /), /usr/local (so I don't wipe out any progs I've compiled
myself) and /var/spool (so I don't wipe out my mail/news feeds)
 
(wipe out meaning if I need to re-install/copy to a new hard drive, etc) 

>> It goes without saying that any alternative partitioning suggestions will
>> be more than welcome.

One bit of advice I took very early on was to take / and remove everything
possible from it via extra partitions. The only things that must stay on
root are /etc, /bin. /sbin and /lib normally. Everything else, I gave its
own partition.
(home, opt, tmp, usr, var, usr/local and /var/spool all got their own partitions)
With that scheme, / was ok with only 2 gigs because most of the install goes
into /usr (which I usually give about 10)

>> And a last question.
>>
>> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
>> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
>> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

It should recognise you have a home (if it doesn't, you can force it not to
format that partition). 

The whole point of having a seperate /home is to preserve your data if you
DO reinstall.

>>
> Just tell the installer that you already have a home partition and the you 
> _do not_ want it to format it. Then you can carry your home directories from 
> one distrbution to another. My current home directory has been through more 
> installations than I care to remember!

Mine too. Going all the way back to 1999 mine.
though I've lost a few things from it since then due to disk failures and
accidental deletions. :)
heck, I've still got my /home directories tarred from university on here
1995-1999.
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   | "I'm alive!!! I can touch! I can taste!         |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   |  I can SMELL!!!  KRYTEN!!! Unpack Rachel and    |
|            in            |  get out the puncture repair kit!"              |
|     Computer Science     |     Arnold Judas Rimmer- Red Dwarf              |

On 23/06/2008 11:01, Andrew Halliwell wrote:

> One bit of advice I took very early on was to take / and remove everything
> possible from it via extra partitions. 

That's good advice, provided you have a rough idea what size you want 
them to be, or can start them off small and grow them as required, and 
you do keep an eye on them, otherwise you can end up with acres of space 
unused in some partitions, while others are groaning at the seams.  For 
a home linux box I take a more relaxed approach than for a work 
unix/linux server.

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:59:30 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:

> On 2008-06-23, rich  wrote:
> 
>> All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
>> editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
>> a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.
> 
> Hmm, how big are your files?  ext3 can handle a file up to 2 terabytes
> in size, although with a 1k block size it'll only handle 16 gigabytes
> in a single file.
> 
> Or is there some other reason for using NTFS for large files?  I'd
> have thought ext3 would be better as it's actually supported ;-)
>

You are of course correct, its more to do with the software I use (win vid
editor running in wine) that seems to balk at big files unless on my ntfs
partition. I find that ntfs-3g works fine and is handy for my portable usb
hdd that gets shared with a windows box.

-- 
rich

zed uttered these words of wisdom:
> Good afternoon from New Zealand.
> 
> I currently run LinuxMINT.
> 
> My computer has 2 x 200GB hard drives (one IDE and the other SATA), and I
> seek advice as to the best way to partition them. Here is what I would like
> to do.
> 
> IDE drive - partition as follows:
> /boot/ext3 (would 100 MB be enough)
> /root/ext3 (would 5 GB be enough)
> /swap/ext3 (4 GB - I have 2GB RAM)
> /home/ext3 (balance of HD)

My preference would be to include /boot in the /root partition and 
increase its size to 10GB as it is quite easy to get 5GB full with /usr 
binaries. I'd be amazed if you would ever need 4GB of swap, I suggest 
2GB or even 1GB.
Thus:
	/root		10GB  	ext3
	/swap		2GB
	/home		Remainder of disk		ext3

> 
> Note: My present set up also has a partition named "extended". No idea where
> it came from. Can someone explain, please?

Each hard drive can only have 4 Primary partitions, if you need more 
then you have to use one of the Primary partitions as an Extended 
partition and this may then be subdivided into logical partitions, 
thereby giving you more than 4 partitions in total.

> SATA drive
> /?? ext 3 (don't know what to name it but would like to use it to for all my
> music files/image files, if possible)

How about /mnt/Music or /Media/Music or /home/username/Music. However if 
you use /mnt or /Media you will have change diectory ownership (chown) 
to your username so that you can write to it.

> (2) Can I partition both the IDE and SATA drives on one pass through the
> installation process?

All drives may be partitioned at install time.

> (3) Or would I have to use GParted to partition the SATA drive after
> installation?

You may do this if you prefer.

> 
> In subsequent installation of future versions of Linux, what do I do about
> the separate Home partition? Do I just ignore it? Will the installation
> procedure accept that or will it create another Home partition?

Only format /root on reinstall and your /home partition will remain 
untouched and if you use the same username  a new /home will not be created.



-- 
In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows or Gates?

rich wrote:
> On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:59:30 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:
> 
>> On 2008-06-23, rich  wrote:
>>
>>> All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
>>> editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
>>> a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.
>> Hmm, how big are your files?  ext3 can handle a file up to 2 terabytes
>> in size, although with a 1k block size it'll only handle 16 gigabytes
>> in a single file.
>>
>> Or is there some other reason for using NTFS for large files?  I'd
>> have thought ext3 would be better as it's actually supported ;-)
>>
> 
> You are of course correct, its more to do with the software I use (win vid
> editor running in wine) that seems to balk at big files unless on my ntfs
> partition. I find that ntfs-3g works fine and is handy for my portable usb
> hdd that gets shared with a windows box.
> 
As a matter of interest, which video editor do you use under wine? Would 
you recommend it? Native video editors under Linux are one area that's 
definiely not quite there yet ...
Simon

On Jun 23, 8:34 am, Gordon Henderson <gordon+use...@drogon.net> wrote:
> Here's what I'd do...
>
> 1. Start from scratch.
>
> /       256MB
> swap    2 x RAM
> /usr    4 GB
> /home   Rest of disk. This is where you're going to store your music,
> etc.
>
I'd be similar but I'd definitely have a /var/, especially if your /
is only going to be 256MB.

> I'd partition both drives with the same number of sectors and use RAID-1
> to mirror them.
>
> Note: there's no /boot partition here. Why not? Well, the idea of a
> /boot originates (I think) from the days when old PC BIOSes had a limit
> to the number of cylinders they could access, so it was important to
> make sure the linux kernel was inside that limit, so the idea of a small
> /boot partition arose.
>
I'd be using LVM on that raid so I'd still have a /boot.

My disks would be 50MB partition 1 for /boot
the rest partition 2 for LVM.

Currently each partition would then be a separate RAID1 although with
kpartx and /dev/mapper/loop0p* it ought now be possible to have the
raid over the entire disk - which should mean you don't even have to
recreate the partition table or reinstall grub if/when a disk fails
and you replace it.

I think the latest versions of GRUB might support LVM directly which
would be another possibility.

Tim.

Simon Dalley wrote:
> rich wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:59:30 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:
>>
>>> On 2008-06-23, rich  wrote:
>>>
>>>> All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
>>>> editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
>>>> a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.
>>> Hmm, how big are your files?  ext3 can handle a file up to 2 terabytes
>>> in size, although with a 1k block size it'll only handle 16 gigabytes
>>> in a single file.
>>>
>>> Or is there some other reason for using NTFS for large files?  I'd
>>> have thought ext3 would be better as it's actually supported ;-)
>>>
>> You are of course correct, its more to do with the software I use (win vid
>> editor running in wine) that seems to balk at big files unless on my ntfs
>> partition. I find that ntfs-3g works fine and is handy for my portable usb
>> hdd that gets shared with a windows box.
>>
> As a matter of interest, which video editor do you use under wine? Would 
> you recommend it? Native video editors under Linux are one area that's 
> definiely not quite there yet ...

Cinelerra's pretty good - if you can cope with the quirks!



-- 
http://SnapAndScribble.com

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:14:38 +0100, Simon Dalley wrote:

> rich wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:59:30 +0100, Ian Rawlings wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2008-06-23, rich  wrote:
>>>
>>>> All the rest is divided up into ext3 data partitions. If you do any video
>>>> editing its worth having a NTFS partition for big video files. I also have
>>>> a small fat32 partition which is shared with a winxp virtual machine.
>>> Hmm, how big are your files?  ext3 can handle a file up to 2 terabytes
>>> in size, although with a 1k block size it'll only handle 16 gigabytes
>>> in a single file.
>>>
>>> Or is there some other reason for using NTFS for large files?  I'd
>>> have thought ext3 would be better as it's actually supported ;-)
>>>
>> 
>> You are of course correct, its more to do with the software I use (win vid
>> editor running in wine) that seems to balk at big files unless on my ntfs
>> partition. I find that ntfs-3g works fine and is handy for my portable usb
>> hdd that gets shared with a windows box.
>> 
> As a matter of interest, which video editor do you use under wine? Would 
> you recommend it? Native video editors under Linux are one area that's 
> definiely not quite there yet ...
> Simon

Have to say I do 99% of video work in my windows box, as you say because
of video editors but also because of my old ATI capture card.
Some years ago I went to entirely .mpeg based files / editing and need
a streaming editor that does not recode.
For the odd cut and join in linux I can use womble-vcr. I can't really
recommend it as it is short on features but it is wonderfully quick and
frame accurate. This is the one I had trouble with when I wanted to scrub
through big files on a ext3 partition. 
In theory Avidemux should do the same job but I have had some odd results
from this when it comes to editing. Its ok as a converter but thats not
what I need. I have tried other windows video editors under wine, most
don't work. 
I've updated to wine v1 so maybe I should try again. Tried a few of the
linux editors in the past, cinellera, lives, even the late mainconcept. 
All want to re-render perfectly good video, takes forever. Perhaps they
have improved, I'll have another look when my windows box dies and I make
the move to 100% linux.

-- 
rich

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:28:34 -0700, google@woodall.me.uk wrote:

[SNIP]
>
> 
> I think the latest versions of GRUB might support LVM directly which
> would be another possibility.
>

It apparently does

     http://grub.enbug.org/LVMandRAID

The end to the disgusting bodge is partitions is finally in sight.

JAB.

-- 
Jonathan A. Buzzard                 Email: jonathan (at) buzzard.me.uk
St. Andrews, United Kingdom.

On 23 Jun 2008, Andrew Halliwell uttered the following:
> Geoffrey Clements  wrote:
>>> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
>> Not that I can see. You may want to create another partition for /var as a 
>> misbehaving program can fill your disk and it's better to fill /var than the 
>> root partition (I have first have first-hand experience of this).
>
> Another few I always do are /tmp (for the same reason, misbehaving
> programs filling /),

It's really, really a good idea to use tmpfs instead and configure some
swap, simply because short-lived temporary files will never hit the disk
at all with tmpfs, while if they're on a real filesystem they'll hit
the disk within five to thirty seconds, which is a complete waste.

>                       /usr/local (so I don't wipe out any progs I've compiled
> myself) and /var/spool (so I don't wipe out my mail/news feeds)
>  
> (wipe out meaning if I need to re-install/copy to a new hard drive, etc) 

/var/log is also useful to keep separate on loghosts (if you have a
loghost that collates logs from many other machines, the logs can often
get very large).

> One bit of advice I took very early on was to take / and remove everything
> possible from it via extra partitions. The only things that must stay on
> root are /etc, /bin. /sbin and /lib normally. Everything else, I gave its
> own partition.

Yep (well, its own filesystem: the only partition on any of my systems
is /boot: everything else is inside either LVM or LVM-atop-md-RAID-5).

> (home, opt, tmp, usr, var, usr/local and /var/spool all got their own partitions)
> With that scheme, / was ok with only 2 gigs because most of the install goes

Your `only' is not my `only'.

Filesystem         1024-blocks      Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/raid/root          198344     45258    142846      25% /

That's enough room for anything I can imagine doing with /. Even things like
multiple glibcs would fit on there with no difficulty at all.

Your `only' is four times larger than my entire filesystem virtual
machine's firewall image, and eight times larger than the space actually
used on that image: and that's an entire running system, web server,
MTA, /usr and all...

> Mine too. Going all the way back to 1999 mine.
> though I've lost a few things from it since then due to disk failures and
> accidental deletions. :)

Um, backups? ;)

> heck, I've still got my /home directories tarred from university on here
> 1995-1999.

Snap (1994--1998). Hell, I've still got my old OS/2 and Commodore 64 disk
images from 1987 upwards on here somewhere, and if I could figure out a
way to dig data off the ZX81 tapes that preceded that, I would :)

-- 
`If you are having a "ua luea luea le ua le" kind of day, I can only
 assume that you are doing no work due [to] incapacitating nausea caused 
 by numerous lazy demons.' --- Frossie

Nix  wrote:
> Snap (1994--1998). Hell, I've still got my old OS/2 and Commodore 64 disk
> images from 1987 upwards on here somewhere, and if I could figure out a
> way to dig data off the ZX81 tapes that preceded that, I would :)
 
Download an emulator or 3?
Loads of zx81 emulators out there and the associated tools can get the files
off tape.  There's a GPL emulator (only for windows, but it works in wine)
called eightyone that can emulate almost every sinclair machine.
(and some sinclair related ones, like the Ace and some russian clones)
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |   Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a    |
|                          | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | operating system originally  coded for a 4 bit |
|            in            |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
|     Computer Science     |        can't stand 1 bit of competition.       |

Nix wrote:

> On 23 Jun 2008, Andrew Halliwell uttered the following:
>> Geoffrey Clements  wrote:
>>>> (1) Are there any flaws in what I'm suggesting?
>>> Not that I can see. You may want to create another partition for /var as
>>> a misbehaving program can fill your disk and it's better to fill /var
>>> than the root partition (I have first have first-hand experience of
>>> this).
>>
>> Another few I always do are /tmp (for the same reason, misbehaving
>> programs filling /),
> 
> It's really, really a good idea to use tmpfs instead and configure some
> swap, 

Just for clarity, I think you are _not_ saying use tmpfs for swap space
(please correct me if I'm wrong). I say this because swap is is used when
free RAM is getting low so tmpfs will not find any extra space either.


> simply because short-lived temporary files will never hit the disk 
> at all with tmpfs, while if they're on a real filesystem they'll hit
> the disk within five to thirty seconds, which is a complete waste.
> 

I've got the following line in /etc/fstab:
none   /dev/shm   tmpfs  defaults,size=272m      0 0

I believe that this is because glibc expects this.

If I understand you correctly you are advocating doing something like this:
none   /tmp   tmpfs  defaults      0 0

which would be generally ok except when using programs such as QDVDAuthor
and lxdvdrip which put *very* large files into /tmp in which case I'd say
leave it on disk (or change the default for these programs).

-- 
Geoff                                           Registered Linux user 196308
Replace bitbucket with geoff to mail me.

On 28 Jun 2008, Andrew Halliwell told this:

> Nix  wrote:
>> Snap (1994--1998). Hell, I've still got my old OS/2 and Commodore 64 disk
>> images from 1987 upwards on here somewhere, and if I could figure out a
>> way to dig data off the ZX81 tapes that preceded that, I would :)
>  
> Download an emulator or 3?
> Loads of zx81 emulators out there and the associated tools can get the files
> off tape.

Yeah, but how do you connect a tape drive to a modern machine at *all*?
All I can think of is the microphone socket...

Nix  wrote:
> On 28 Jun 2008, Andrew Halliwell told this:
> 
>> Nix  wrote:
>>> Snap (1994--1998). Hell, I've still got my old OS/2 and Commodore 64 disk
>>> images from 1987 upwards on here somewhere, and if I could figure out a
>>> way to dig data off the ZX81 tapes that preceded that, I would :)
>>  
>> Download an emulator or 3?
>> Loads of zx81 emulators out there and the associated tools can get the files
>> off tape.
> 
> Yeah, but how do you connect a tape drive to a modern machine at *all*?
> All I can think of is the microphone socket...

Bingo.
:)
in some emulators, you can load the tape directly into the emulator.
In others, you make a wav and then run that through a convertor.
Both using the mic port.
-- 
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |   Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a    |
|                          | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
|   Andrew Halliwell BSc   | operating system originally  coded for a 4 bit |
|            in            |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
|     Computer Science     |        can't stand 1 bit of competition.       |

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:00:42 +0100, Nix wrote:

> Yeah, but how do you connect a tape drive to a modern machine at *all*?
> All I can think of is the microphone socket...

Allow me to introduce to you this abomination, at an eye-watering 80 quid:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=220602&ma=Edinburgh%20-%20USB
%20Twin%20Tape%20Deck

-- 
 <http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
 21:17:29 up  4:28,  1 user,  load average: 3.53, 2.35, 1.24
 Convergence, n: The act of using separate DSL circuits for voice and data

In message <4867ee7a$0$78072$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>, alexd 
 writes
>On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:00:42 +0100, Nix wrote:
>
>> Yeah, but how do you connect a tape drive to a modern machine at *all*?
>> All I can think of is the microphone socket...
>
>Allow me to introduce to you this abomination, at an eye-watering 80 quid:
>
>http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=220602&ma=Edinburgh%20-%20USB
>%20Twin%20Tape%20Deck
>

Maplin also have an audio tape device that fits into a 5.25" drive bay.



-- 
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author.

On 29 Jun 2008, alexd verbalised:

> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:00:42 +0100, Nix wrote:
>
>> Yeah, but how do you connect a tape drive to a modern machine at *all*?
>> All I can think of is the microphone socket...
>
> Allow me to introduce to you this abomination, at an eye-watering 80 quid:

Neat! Noted for later, when I have some actual money: 80 quid is not
`eye-watering'. Around 750 quid for the device I'm now using to extract
pollen from the air, *that's* eye-watering, and has left me somewhat
straitened for a month or so... (well, OK, actually it's eye
*un*watering: I can see again! I can breathe again! At least as long as
I stay indoors at home.)

(plus I have to get the tapes back from the Black Lagoon of deep
storage. I *think* they're probably buried deep in the eaves of a house
200 miles away...)

On 29 Jun 2008, Geoffrey Clements uttered the following:

> Nix wrote:
>> On 23 Jun 2008, Andrew Halliwell uttered the following:
>>> Another few I always do are /tmp (for the same reason, misbehaving
>>> programs filling /),
>> 
>> It's really, really a good idea to use tmpfs instead and configure some
>> swap, 
>
> Just for clarity, I think you are _not_ saying use tmpfs for swap space
> (please correct me if I'm wrong). I say this because swap is is used when
> free RAM is getting low so tmpfs will not find any extra space either.

Indeed I'm not saying that. Use tmpfs for /tmp, which is then backed by
swap space, so you might need to add some swap. Don't put the swap in
/tmp, that's a bit of an infinite regression (plus tmpfs doesn't
implement the necessary address_space_operations anyway, so you couldn't
put swap on it even if you wanted to).

>> simply because short-lived temporary files will never hit the disk 
>> at all with tmpfs, while if they're on a real filesystem they'll hit
>> the disk within five to thirty seconds, which is a complete waste.
>
> I've got the following line in /etc/fstab:
> none   /dev/shm   tmpfs  defaults,size=272m      0 0
>
> I believe that this is because glibc expects this.

Yeah, it uses it for the POSIX shared memory interfaces, shm_*().

> If I understand you correctly you are advocating doing something like this:
> none   /tmp   tmpfs  defaults      0 0

Yes, as well.

> which would be generally ok except when using programs such as QDVDAuthor
> and lxdvdrip which put *very* large files into /tmp in which case I'd say
> leave it on disk (or change the default for these programs).

If they're writing files so large that they run out of room, set TMPDIR
to somewhere with more space (and if they don't respect that or have
some other way of saying `eat space somewhere else', fix them or shoot
their authors, or both).