setting up a linux partition and primary/extended partitions
 

hi, i am planning to triple boot my computer...i will be installing mandrake 9.0 last but i have a question

how exactly do i partition my linux drive? i've heard a simple / will work....i've also heard that creating 3 partitiosn within the linux drive, /boot /swap and /, will also work...i've also read more complicated ones involving /usr and /home which i believe is not entirely necessary since i am a newbie right now

secondly, i think i have decided to go with the /boot /swap and / configuration...if this is the correct way to do it is it necessary to ID the /boot partition as primary? and then /swap and / as extended or is that unnecessary since the c: drive is already the primary? how do i label the 3 linux partitions?


does anybody understand this? any help is appreciated...thanks

When you install Linux the installation programs should walk you through it, and you need not specify which are extended. Basically, the first three partitions are primary, the fourth holds the info for the extended partitions, and every partition after is an extended one.

As you mentioned, if you are just going to be playing around with linux you will probably be fine just using a / partition. Using more partitions just ensures that data will be safe if one partition gets corrupted (never happened to me yet!)

btw, you need only one swap partition, two or more linux installations can share the same one.

If your windows c drive is using the entire hard drive you will need to free up some space for your linux install. Allow a min of 5 GB for a full install. On the first CD in the dos/utils directory there is a program called fips that can resize existing FAT partitons. If you have a NTFS partition then you will need partition magic.

/boot 70mb is enough
for your swap rule of thumb allow 2x ram size.
The rest for /

As already mentions the install can autocreate partitions for you so you don't have to worry about primary, extended or logical. But you should have a least a min understanding of how it works.
linux can be installed to any partition primary or logical.

In a nutshell:
There are 4 primary partitions.
There can be 64 logical parititions which are located in an extended partition.

typical scheme (i.e. one hard drive)
hda1 is primary which is your windows c drive
hda2 is extended
hda5 and up are logical parititions

hmmm :) anyways, i'd recommend freeing up the space, as others said about 5gb, and "unpartitioning" that much of it. i'd then start the linux installer and either have it partition the drives automatically, or if you feel confident, manually do it with the installer. that's what i had to do to get red hat 8 to work after about 8 installs.

good choice with mandrake as its good for newbies and is less prone to hardware problems.

johan the olive:

Apple stole the GUI idea for the MAC's from Xerox.

and then microshit stole it. poor xerox

There is a fine line between 'being inspired by' and 'stealing' someone else's work or ideas.