Sharing partitions

gvaught · 11-15-2003, 09:13 AM

Hi,

I'm a relative newbie and have a newbie question. Is it possible for me to share partitions on a multi-boot system? I've got a test box with two drives, 8GB and 10GB, and I'd like to set up the second drive (8GB) with my /home, /swap and possibly /usr partitions and share them between different distros, leaving my 10GB drive for my / partitions for each distro.

Basically, I'm looking for a way to share/conserve space AND get the most distros on this box that I can. IF this is possible, I'll also want to know which partitions I can share between distros.

Much thanks to anyone with answers, regardless of which way it goes.

fancypiper · 11-15-2003, 09:32 AM

I share these partitions on my quad boot
/boot
/home
/pub

I have no problems with that setup, but I'm not sure about /usr, but I think you can share it as well.

gvaught · 11-15-2003, 10:13 AM

That's cool, piper, but could you explain what the /pub partition is all about? I've been advised to create the partitions as follows: /boot (100MB), /, /home and /usr and make the rest of the mountpoints/partitions subdirectories in the root directory.

Do you have any advice on how to set this up or does this method work okay?

fancypiper · 11-15-2003, 10:23 AM

My /pub partition is a 60 gig partition that I use for general storage, such as my urpmi stuff for Mandrake, rpms for Red Hat and source code for Gentoo along with it's portage tree. I share this partition with all my networked computers.

The way you set up your partition depends upon what your use of the computer is. See Proper Filesystem Layout for some suggestions/hints.

# Linux filesystem structure
Directory Navigation Help File
Filesystems, Directories, and Devices Help File
Proper Filesystem Layout

My partitioning scheme:

Code:

Sat Nov 15 11:24am root@tinwhistle ~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *         1      1217   9772056    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2   *      1217      1229     99855   83  Linux
/dev/hda3          1230      1656   3429877+  83  Linux
/dev/hda4          1657      4865  25776292+   5  Extended
/dev/hda5          1657      1719    506016   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda6          1720      2146   3429846   83  Linux
/dev/hda7          2147      2573   3429846   83  Linux
/dev/hda8          2574      3719   9205213+  83  Linux
/dev/hda9          3720      4865   9205213+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdb1             1       973   7815591   83  Linux
/dev/hdb2           974      1946   7815622+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb3          1947      2919   7815622+  83  Linux
/dev/hdb4          2920      9729  54701325   83  Linux

My /etc/fstab file

Code:

/dev/hda6      	       	/			reiserfs defaults	 1 1
/dev/hda2               /boot			ext3    defaults	1 2
none                    /dev/pts		devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
/dev/hda8               /home			reiserfs defaults	 1 2
#/dev/hda3              /mnt/gentoo		reiserfs defaults	 1 2
#/dev/hda7              /mnt/mandrake		ext3    defaults	1 2
#/dev/hdc1              /pub			ext3    defaults	1 2
/dev/hda1               /mnt/win98		vfat    defaults	0 0
/dev/hdb3               /mnt/markrose		ext3    defaults	1 2
none                    /proc			proc    defaults	0 0
none                    /dev/shm		tmpfs   defaults	0 0
/dev/hdb4               /pub			ext3    defaults	1 2
/dev/hda9               /snd			reiserfs defaults	 1 2
/dev/hda5               swap			swap    defaults	0 0
/dev/cdrom              /mnt/cdrom		iso9660 noauto,owner,ro 0 0
/dev/fd0                /mnt/floppy		auto    noauto,owner     0 0

gvaught · 11-15-2003, 10:31 AM

Extremely cool, piper! Thanks for the direction to the resources as well as an obviously working example of what's good!

I may have a new best friend...

gvaught · 11-15-2003, 02:00 PM

A quick question re: one of the articles you recommended. What is a NHF? The acronym is thrown out first thing (and a couple of times) as if we (the readers of a basic explanation) should know what it means. Could you (or anyone) explain or clarify?

fancypiper · 11-15-2003, 05:43 PM

There are some lazy, arrogant people at justlinux.com, so the NHFs should more properly be called JustLinux help files. 'Tis a sad tale indeed.

Once upon a time, there was Sensei and he sayeth, "Let there be a linuxnewbie.org" and it was.

Sensei sayeth, "All in the community that be newbies, help other newbies out by writing Newbieized Help Files" and the community responded.

Internet.com, noticing the heavy traffic there offered Sensei many jewels and trinkets, and Sensei being a mere human, sold linuxnewbie.org. Internet.com looketh at the name and was displeased and changed both the name and the posting rules. The gurus at justlinux.com got highly peeved and abandoned that site and came here where they are allowed to help newbies freely.

Now, Linux gurus and addicts are happy hanging around here.