In preparation to make my first LFS System, I just realize I lost my notes concerning the Linux partitions sizes (for /, /home, ect.)



Honestly, other than /, swap, and /home, I can't even remember what the partitions were ! Much less how big to make them. I know there is no fixed size, since it all depends on how much software you'll install and space you need, but I forgot what the "golden rules" were for setting the partition sizes


So... when making a Linux System, what partitions will you need and what are the guidelines for their size?


Thanks, I would REALLy appreciate !



(I know I came accross it... maybe somewhere in my "How Linux Works" Book, but the only thing I could [after briefly searching] was "Swap Space should be at least twice as big as your actual physical memory"... or maybe I found it on the FHS? I Don't Remember, I need to find it and study more )

Here's my layout,

/boot - 100 MB
/ - 10 GB
swap 500 MB
/var - 20 GB
/home - 40 GB

Dell Dimension 4500 1.8GHz 768 MB RAM

You could easily come up with something entirely different and it'll still work out excellent for you...which means it's upto you to decide on partition sizes.

Tux

Something strange just happened...


Just when I finished reinstalling my OS (Mandrake 10.1 Powerpack), I Allocated the paritions and happened to forget to make one for /boot and /var (I only made one for / and /home)



But when I viewed the contents of /, I found /boot and /var. When I typed to see which filesystems were mounted, the only ones I found were the two I defined on the installation: / and /home


So when you do not define /boot and /var as partitions, are they automatically formed within / ? Or else, how did they appear?

/boot and /var are directories on /, just like all the other directories on /. They are not mounted as separate partitions because they are not separate partitions, unless you create them as such during the installation.

Actually the only partitions you really need to create are / and /swap. /home /var /lib and all the others will be created under the / partition.
I find that this actually makes better use of disk space as you don't run into problems with having made a partition bigger or smaller than actually needed.

But you usually want to at least have /home separate so you can keep your user data when you reinstall.

here is my partition table:
/boot --> 200M
/ --> 1G
/usr --> 20G (that is way too much ;-) )
/var --> 4G
swap --> 3 G (too much too...)
/tmp --> 1G
/home --> 50G
A.

IF you reinstall: something I try to avoid at all costs.

But a good point, in case of filesystem corruption.