I want to install Linux to a 450MB HDD laptop and would like some advice on which partitions to create. I have read that it's best to install the following to separate partitions:

/home
/usr/local
And obviously I will also need a swap & root partition.


So...my question is:

* With 16MB of RAM available - how large should I make my swap partition? (I envisage mainly using the machine for light development, a minimal X install and possibly as a web-server.)

* Assuming an approx 140MB Linux install, how big should my root partition be (e.g. will I need room for future expansion)?

* How much space should I assign to each of /home & /usr/local assuming that this will effectively be a single user machine with a single guest account?

Any suggestions will be appreciated :-)
Thanks.

I'm not arrogant enough to say this is the best solution but it's my two-cents anyway:

Partitioning has it's advantages, but one of the big disadvantages is the size restrictions they incur.

If there will be only 1 user on a 450MB with 16MB RAM, I'd suggest the following:

Swap - 32MB to 48MB
You have very little RAM so the usual swap = 2xRAM is probably a bit small but there's very little sense in going over 48MB

One primary partition - size the rest of your HD.
You could divy up the HD some more, but that's going to set you up for a world of hurt when one of them becomes too cramped.
There's really no need to partition for /home or /usr/local for just one user.

You could decide to make one partition though: boot
This should only hold the kernel so doesn't need to be that large. Still the boot partition is optional, you don't need to create it.


http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/

Thanks for that codeape. Your comments make a lot of sense considering the single-user aspect. I was originally thinking to maintain separate /home /usr partitions to make OS upgrades easier - before realizing that, given the laptop's specs, I'm never likely to need to do that!