general partitioning scheme
 

hey all!

I've been toying around with linux for awhile...I am most definately still a newbie though! Anyway...I have spent quite a lot of time cleaning up my windows setup and all of my hordes of data. I am ready to install (once again) and setup gentoo on my box.

Any recommendations for a partitioning scheme?

I have an 80 gb and a 200gb. Right now my 200 is full of data, and my 80 has a (fairly) clean install of xp pro on it. I have used, and really come to like, gentoo. I will become my primary os, but I plan to keep xp pro for the occassional, definately unfortunate, use. I think I will drop my ntfs partition down to 25 gigs. I figure 32megs for /boot, and 1.5gigs for the swap partition...but what about the rest? Is it worth setting up a scheme that gives a few directories their own mount point? I've read about various schemes for gaming, mail, and web servers...but not really much about the regular home user. I use portage a lot and compile all of my programs; I think I once read somewhere that while something is being compiled...portage uses a temporary folder /var/tmp/portage, and that, if on a separate partition, it would be wise to give /var some room. I am security conscious, and heard putting /home on its own partition is a good start for security. I don't share my computer with anyone, so there's no multiuser environment to worry about. I use my computer for all the everyday stuff, papers, web, a little gaming, programming, music...as well as little video/audio editing/creating, and my engineering applications like pro engineer and that sort of thing. Eventually I'd like to use linux for everything.

Should my boot partition be at the beginning of the disk? Right now xp pro occupies the disk...I was planning to shrink it down, but should I move it to a different section of the disk as well?

I appreciate any input and comments :-)

Thanks! :D

Keep your 200Gb for Data. If you format it as FAT32, then both Windows and Linux will be able to read and write to it. I would make the mount point for this something like /mnt/files.

Split the 80Gb into 25Gb for windows, and leave the rest for linux. You could just have a swap (1Gb is normally the most you will need), and the rest as a partition for /. You could give /home its own partition, but in this case it is probably not necessary. I think other ideas such as partitions for /usr, /var, /usr/local, and all the rest are really for servers and not for desktops.

Don't hold me to this, but I think that you can just install lilo to the MBR and not have to set aside its own partition.

I hope this helps
--Ian

thanks for you're suggestions!

I use grub, but I know lilo and grub install to the mbr, but the /boot partition is mostly for holding the kernel(s) you may have. You should consider using another distro...mandrake makes it easy to use and you don't learn how an operating system (and computer) really works.

Also, the 200 gb is going to be my data drive for sure, though eventually I'd ilke to have it be a linux partition. I haven't decided if I'd leave a small "swapping" partition or not. I would definately copy files from within linux, and linux has ntfs support. I don't really care about going the other way. I'm only keeping windows installed b.c (this is truly sad) in the stuff i do, i really need to have windows available...for just in case. Well anyway...I don't really trust windows partitions, ESPECIALLY fat32. How stable is ext3...I'm thinking of using that for my data drive (eventually)....I mean I know you are never completely safe from your hd failing on you or losing a partition or something of the sort...

anyone think /home or other main directories should be on their own partition?

You should'nt use ext3 for big drives, stick with ReiserFS...

I use

/
/boot
/home

All of my data is in my home directory. That way if I want to install another Linux Distibution I can retain all my data and personal settings. Although there is no reason not to have a separate /DATA partition if you like.

Regards

Shmonkey