how much disk space does it take
 

I would like to know eactly how much space does it take to install linux I'm using centos 5. I plan on installing on a physical box but right now I'm playing around using vmware. I have 2 virtual disk one 15 and a 10. I'm also playing around with LVM also. I have created a root partion of at least 12 gigs I'm trying to install the Gnome and KDE desktops. Also I selected most server packages they include DNS, FTP, Legacy network server, mail server, network servers, printing support, server config tools, apache and samba. So I attempt to procede with the install I get a pop box back that states "Your selected packages require 1652 MB of free space for the installation, but you do not have enough available. So I ask how much space does it take to install linux.

Linux? Not much space at all...I have a 51 MB /boot partition, and "Linux" fits in there just fine along with my boot loader config and such...("Linux" is just a kernel...)

If you mean how much does it take to install <name your distro here>, that's a different story...and it depends on the distro you choose.

Sounds to me like you need somewhere around 1.6 GB of hard drive space, given the message you posted...If you're just looking for a vmware setup, why not look for a vmware image? (I don't know if one exists for CentOS, but I'm pretty sure you can find one with google). As for the virtual disks, are those in the range of 15,000 MB, or 1,500 MB? If it's 1,500 MB, that's the problem...

Difficult to give absolute numbers; it all depends on the distribution and how much you are actually installing. If Fedora is anything to go by (and I would bet it is seeing how closely it is related to CentOS), I would say something like 8 to 12 GB for the system files; any remaining space can be used to save your personal files.

Let me chime in since I did a clean install of CentOS 5 two days ago on a VM.

I installed the server packages and the Gnome/OOo stuff on a 8 GB virtual disk with a 1 GB swap, a 100 MB /boot and the rest as a / partition. The total install took 2.9 GB. My Fedora boxes run on 10-12 GB system disks, and they're half-filled, after 2 years of daily use, but I always put my web stuff and /home directories on separate nfs shares.

Well, that only confirms what I said: no absolute figures. I happen to run Fedora as well and my / is 12GB full (out of 14) + 1.5GB var (out of 4 ) and then some stuff in /home. I have Gnome, XFCE, KDE and FluxBox. Most space gets eaten up by programming IDEs, though. If it weren't for those, / would only be 8 or 9 GB full.

Agreed. YMMV as they say. I install the bare minimum, as far as programming is concerned. Enough to compile some kernel drivers, but that's it. That's probably why I've been ok with far less disk space. ;)

I'll add some knowledge of my own; the smallest size I've encountered this far is from LFS (Linux From Scratch) project, where it was said an Apache web server (on Linux) could be installed in a few megabytes or less (less than 10MB anyway). That's quite minimal system. Then you have these small distributions that not necessarily "force" you to install X server or office programs or stuff like that; they can easily fit in a hundred megabytes or a few, without problems. Next step are these "bigger and shinier" distributions of Linux that are often referred to as "desktop distributions", which are meant for everyday use and try to offer pretty much anything you ask, including a whole range of drivers, modules, programs, themes, ... Disk size is bigger too: Ubuntu, Fedora, SuSE and alike tend to use 2-3 gigabytes, considerably more than what you might want. Windows (last time I checked XP install) uses something between 1 and 2 gigabytes without much extra software. If you care to take some time and strip off the software you don't need (or use an installer where you can during the setup drop off the programs you know you don't need) you can easily get the consumption of disk size lower, down to less than 1 gigabyte.

It's really up to the person who installs the system. The easiest method is to pick up an installer that lets you choose packages to install during the setup, like those RedHat used in the past (I can't remember if Fedora still does that, but I suppose it does -- Fedora is a giant, though). Ubuntu's regular installer doesn't ask you about packages, but if you pick the Alternate Install CD/DVD, I believe you'll get to choose the packages. And if it's ok, you can just as well install a regular system and once it's done, remove stuff you don't need.

Shortly said: Linux (kernel) doesn't take much space at all, and a Linux-based distribution's disk usage (clean install) varies from a few megabytes to a few gigabytes, depending on the selections of the person who installs. That's one of the good sides of Linux; try to do the same with Windows, and you'll know the difference :) last time I tried to "free up space" during a Windows setup it ended up with being a few megabytes less than a regular install. Not much..maybe because there really isn't much to drop.

Ok obviously I'm installing this wrong because I went back deleted my virtual machine than created another with just one 12 gig disk. After that I just used the defaults and let the system partion for me I than selected all server packages along with gnome and kde and the install worked fine. I gues I'm not installing this right with lvm. When the linux installer ask me what disk do I want to use for install I just selected one drive and not the other. After that I create a /boot than go back in and create a LVM volume and tell the system to use the rest of the disk I than go back in and create a second LVM volume and tell the system to use all of the second disk. I than go into the LVM manager and create mount points for /var, /tmp /, /home, /usr. /usrlocal, swap partition, and so fourth. Ok so does anyone know what I'm doing wrong in the process?

I'd say keep it simple. When I install Fedora/CentOS, I use a manual partitioning scheme. I usually do not use LVM on a desktop, much less on a VM. Here's how I do it on a standalone VM install with a 12 GB hard drive:

/boot 100MB
swap depends on the amount of RAM, (if RAM > 512MB, 1024MB is more than enough)
/ All remaining space

It may seem to be in contradiction with earlier posts, but in this case you're not building a race car (or your main computer, for that matter), you're building a VM. Creating separate mountpoints doe /usr, /etc, /var /tmp won't be as flexible, because it forces you to determine a size to each partition upfront. BTW, don't create /usrlocal as it will go to waste. User programs are located in /usr/local in RedHat-ish distros.

If you want a separate /home, there are ways to mount a second virtual disk for one or many VM from the same distro... that's something I oughta try myself!

The reason I'm using a vm is because after I get a feel for this I will put it on a physical test box. I might as well go ahead and try it on the testbox now its a p4 2.6 1gig of ram it also has a 40 gig drive and 2 100's. I'm just not getting why the install is not working with lvm because it looks like I did everything correctly. So has anyone here did a lvm setup from the ground up when installing the os?