Suggestions on Partition Sizes

jrperiod · 01-30-2004, 07:01 PM

OK, I a now running Mandrake 9.2 but looking to remove it and do a Stage 1 Gentoo install. Yes Im a newbie but Windows (80gig) and Gentoo (30gig)will be on 2 separate hard drives so I figre that there is no way to mess up my system as long as I dont go and delete the partitions on the wrong hD during the install.

On to my question, Ive been reading the install documentation for Gentoo and it recommends only 3 partitions; /boot, /swap, /rest of drive. I have also been reading through this forum and seen that people recommend that a /home and /usr/local be added to that list. How much space should be alocated to each aprtition

/boot 64meg
/swap 512meg
/root ? 3gig
/home ? rest of drive
/usr/local ? 1-2gig

Oh and if I wanted to leave space for an extra distro of Linux, would that be /tmp ? ~3gig or the same size as my root

Oh yeah, this machine will not be used as a server

frob23 · 01-30-2004, 08:19 PM

/ root could probably survive on much less than 3 gigs... 500M even... put 1 gig if you want to be safe but really most stuff is under usr.

/usr 5 or 6 gigs should be fine for this. Maybe ten if you plan on intalling everything on the planet.

/home the rest of it. You want /home to be pretty big especially if you have lots of mp3s or video files.

If you wanted to leave space -- don't bother putting it on a partition... you will be tempted to mount it, use it, store something important on it, and then never put the other distro on it. Personal experience here.

jrperiod · 01-30-2004, 09:10 PM

Am I correct in saying that the /usr usually resides in the/root (thats why some peoples /root is so big) if not put on its own partition?

I have seen peoples setup were they have a /usr and a /usr/local. The /usr/local for apps that are put on the computer that you may want to keep when upgrading or reinstallin.

frob23 · 01-30-2004, 09:49 PM

/usr does reside in the root if it is not on a seperate parition. I usually just make a big /usr and don't worry about /usr/local -- keeps all my programs together on one partition... but both ways are fine.

nightjar · 01-30-2004, 10:17 PM

But, really u dont think about ur /home dir where u can put all of ur download and another things?
If u put here urs downld, it grown very quickly.
In the other hand if u need to reinstall the OS /home can survive and dont need to format it

jrperiod · 01-30-2004, 10:49 PM

So instead of a usr/local I can have a "Program Files" in my /home directiry?

Whitehat · 01-30-2004, 11:17 PM

Here is how mine is split up

This is on a 40GB Drive.

Code:

root@sledgehammer:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda2              5675336    521408   4860980  10% /
/dev/hda1                29249      2924     24815  11% /boot
/dev/hda3              7564848   2204068   4970308  31% /usr
/dev/hda6              1325424    490964    766044  40% /var
/dev/hda7              1091088     35164    999604   4% /tmp
/dev/hda5             22701936    109228  21420912   1% /home

I have 512MB dedicated to my swap file

I like to have /home seperate so that I can reload my box if needed and just not format the /home partition. By doing this not only do I keep my data, but most of my settings for the desktop and other things. Another thing I do is copy important files like lilo.conf, inittab, rc.local, XF86Config, and some others to a config folder I have in home so if needed I have backups at all times. It's also nice to reload a box and just copy those files over and reboot. Done

I also like to split up /tmp and /var so if they fill up they don't stop my box from booting or doing other silly things.

I make /boot 30MB because you will seldom need more than that. I mean a 30MB /boot will hold like 8-10 kernal images. I usually only have 2-3 at most. Heck usually I only have one. I delete the others when I do a kernel recompile and i like how it runs.

Peace,
Whitehat

nightjar · 01-30-2004, 11:18 PM

linux is a multiuser system
Then most of the common programs reside inside /usr but when you run any of its an subdir inside /home/user is created with the "individual" parameters
The executables generally are inside /usr/bin, but u can install programs as mozlla firebird that run only for you and not for eventually other users

Can I be clear?

In the other hand you can put inside /home/user software that you can symlink to another dirs when you reinstall or have an important faillure

/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 15G 13G 1.8G 88% /
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part9 25G 17G 8.6G 66% /home
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 20G 20G 226M 99% /mnt/windows
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part7 3.9G 1.6G 2.1G 44% /usr
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part8 11G 167M 9.6G 2% /var

That's the result of df