I'm trying to weigh the pros/cons of where to install Linux on my work laptop.

It has a 30 GB hard drive with about 8 GB free right now.

So my two choices: squeeze linux into ~6 GB or install it on a 20 GB external HD. The external requires carrying more, and trying to make it boot from an external HD, but also provides for more space. The 6 GB is not much space (especially since I *prefer* Gentoo).

So, thoughts on this?

Well, I've got a Slackware installation (Gnome and KDE) on a 6 GB HD right now, and it's only using up about 3 GB. What you might consider is having your 6GB be your / partition, then put /usr, /home, and /var on the external - you should still have well over 4 GB (and probably over 5GB) left on the laptop if you do it that way...

Just a suggestion. I'm considering doing something similar right now, as a matter of fact...

I'd rather not split the install: then I *both* lose space on my Windows drive (yes, I know, but I need it for work) and have to have the external usb drive to make linux work.

Ah, I see. What do you want to use Linux for? You can get a pretty small install if you don't need Gnome/KDE. I've got an old (Pentium 133) laptop that I use mainly to check email with a 6GB drive, and I'm barely using 2GB there. I use XFCE for my window manager, and I didn't install any of the server/db/development stuff. Depending on what you need Linux to do, you might be able to get away with a 4GB partition (or less) for it...

I'll be using it to do some minimal C/C++ development, Word Processing, Email, etc. For example, the Knoppix LiveCD has 99% of the software I'll be wanting to use.

Personally, I'd give it a shot on the laptop - give yourself maybe 4GB to play with, try it for a while, and if it starts to eat up alot of space maybe then reconsider. You could periodically move old/archived source code/documents over to the external too.

Again, just my 2 cents - others might have better ideas

I've decided I'll be using Gentoo. It's installing right now. I managed to clear about 8 GB for Linux, so I'm using ~500 for swap, a 1 GB FAT32 partition for file transfer, and the other 6.5 GB just as /. I generally prefer to create many partitions, but I'm afraid that misjudging there might lead to a lot of wasted space: or running out of space. I figure using a single / should be fine, since I'll be backing up often to my desktop at home. This is basically just an install so I can use Linux at work, out of town, etc. (Other than over SSH).