1st post so Hi All

I've been using Slack 11 for general home use for a few months now to get comfortable with it.
I've been using a simple partition layout of:

/ 10gb
/home 42gb
swap 2gb

I think I should revise this layout and create extra partitions to preserve data should I choose to reinstall or upgrade to the next version of slack (whenever that might be).

I'm thinking the following should be suitable but would like opinions from those with more experience. Maybe ideas I haven't thought about?

/ 5gb
/home 20gb
/opt 5gb
/usr/local 3gb
swap 2gb

The drive is 160gb with 100gb allocated to WinXP therefore I would have some space spare if I needed to enlarge any partitions at a later date (I haven't done this before so I'm assuming it can be done without losing data)

Thanks
Chris

I recommend looking at the sizes of different top-level directories on your system and getting an idea of what sizes to expect from each one. Might also wanna consider LVM when working with so many partitions.

Other than that, I wouldn't know ... I have 2 partitions: root and swap. I need to back up things to DVD often and mess up my system constantly, so when the next version of Slack comes out it will be a completely clean install.

Too much swap.

With one exception, the most swap I've ever seen my machine use is 40MB (I have 1GB of RAM) and that's when I'm building software. The exception was the test suite for Octave Forge when it was running the tests for sparse matrices. I needed 1.5GB of swap to run that portion of the test suite without running out of resources.

For general home use, I set my kids up with a 5GB partition for home (only one user, they each have their own box) and a 15GB partition for everything else. Last I looked both machines were using about 9GB of the 15GB. The kids have been using their boxes for a little over a year and their package inventory is pretty stable. The only change one of them made was to mount a 10GB partition at /home/<his_name>/music for his tunes.

My machine is different...a 10GB home partition, a 7.5GB partition for MySQL databases shared by CLFS and Gentoo, a 10GB partition for tarballs, a 7.5GB partition for a local subversion repository shared by CLFS and Gentoo, a 5GB(?) partition for /var/log for each distro. Ummmmm, don't remember the rest...

In general swap should be between 1x and 2x RAM. So I have 1 GB RAM and 2 GB swap. My machine does use a lot of swap when working with large images (especially ones that have been scanned in) ... so it is useful. But, I'm sure 1 GB would be plenty.

Hehehe.. I'm with TexMex on that subject, both checking out the existing partition contents, AND on messing with/messing up, my system.
I'm pretty new to it all too (and Welcome to you) but I have been doing fine with a root(30 gb), a swap (2 gb), and a backup partition the same size as my root(approx 30 gb).
There are lots of ways and preferences as to how to divvy up the partitions, including as you propose, putting /home and perhaps /usr on their own partitions.
I say (with no authority whatsoever ) do what is convenient and comfortable for you, as long as the stuff needed to boot with is always in the main partition.
Having a full backup partition of the entire system has its merits though; it's only ONE partition more than usual, and it has everything you could want from your current system that you might want for upgrade.
Also, YES using gparted or parted in my experience so far has been 100% successful for manipulating partitions.. I use it from Ubuntu's LiveCD, because it is a little easier and more comforting than the command line, and I cannot say what it might do to a Windows Partition if you tried to MOVE or resize it, but as for Linux partitions, it has moved and resized flawlessly for me.
I resized my root from like 80Gb down to 30Gb, it took about 15 minutes, but was done correctly.

I have 1GB of ram and only a 256MB swap partition which is used by both Slackware and PCLinuxOS. Using my box as a home desktop, I haven't had a problem so far.

Also, I have found the GParted live CD to be really, really useful. I'm currently triple booting Slack, PClin, and XP.

I've had some good success w/gparted and moving windows stuff. though I usually get the check disk routine when i boot back into windows. Also I like the gPartEd live cd, seems to load faster than using a whole distro live cd.

one thing i've found incredibly useful for my dual boot computers is to have a fat32 partition, so I can r/w to it from either OS. I make it very big and then keep / to like 3GB and make big /usr

I was too new setting up my last install and failed to make ones for /opt and /home though. That really hurt when I filled up my / directory. (too much in ~/.Trash)

Hi,

When you resize the ntfs partition, be sure to defrag the drive before using a partitioner. You could use ranish to make sure the IPL is correct for the ntfs. BTW, are you moving the partition? If so what method, 'dd'?

I agree that if you need to share reliable files between ntfs and linux that fat32 is the way to go. You will have to setup a defrag for the fat32 on occasion.

edit: one other point, I like to use the minimum for '/', then setup '/usr', '/home', '/tmp', '/var/log' and '/opt' with the needed space for a desktop. The amount is dictated on how the system is to be used.
When I build, the /tmp will be used heavily. My build space is in the /home therefore no problems.

Of course my 'servers' are setup differently.

Thanks for all the advice, lots to digest.

Is /opt common to linux distro's or just Slack? I'm a bit confused over whether to use /opt or usr/local?

Here is the standard that defines the file system structure http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html. I believe that Slackware complies, but I'm not a Slackware user so don't know for sure. Other distros also comply with the standard to varying degrees, but I can't think of any that I've used that don't have a /opt or /usr/local.

As far as whether to use /usr/local or /opt, read the applicable sections in the standard and decide for yourself (remember, you're the administrator that the standard references ). That being said, I never use /usr/local on my home machine. Everything either goes straight into /usr or /opt/<package>. I tend to put "BIG" packages (i.e., lots of files) like Firefox, GNOME, or OpenOffice into /opt because they are easier to remove from the system (rm -dfr /opt/firefox-1.0.0.5 vs. deleting files sprinkled all over the /usr/local hierarchy).

Thanks, that site explained a lot. Think I'm sorted now.

@onebuck - _very_ good point I forgot, always defrag before moving the windows partition. Actually sometimes need to do it a few times.

I defrag like 2-3 times or until the defraging process is like instantaneous (i.e. its not moving anything anymore)

I haven't used or heard of 'dd' (here is my n00b showing) I just use the gPartEd live CD, you can change the number of blocks before & after a partition to move it. I really have no idea whats happening underneath the hood there.. sorry

? because of my aforementioned screw up (leaving /home on /) I tend to build everything in /usr/local/src - is that 'bad' ?

? I have thought about repartitioning to give myself a /home & /opt partition, is it really worth it?

I do like the idea of keeping OpenOffice and some other rather large programs I have there in /opt but doesnt removpkg get rid of everything?

What removpkg? I use a CLFS system for my day-to-day system. All I have is the rm command.

Actually, I have a file management system of my own creation that keeps track of the file that are installed by every package. I just haven't written the part that removes these files yet.

Hi,

You should only need to defrag the drive once. That is unless you have something running on the system that is updating. Close all the apps and process that are not needed. For any M$ product, I run in safe mode when system maintenance is performed. That way you will not run into major problems. You can still get into the command mode to perform just about anything on M$.

I would suggest that you look at the LQ thread post by AwesomeMachine for dd'.
Really informative!

No, not really. I like to make my builds in /home/build. That way any user can use the build and I can move what I want where. I leave my tree intact by using the build.

That is a personal choice. The advantage is if you reload/re-install or experiment a lot. You can share the /home across installs. The /opt just gives you some additional flexibility.

I would suggest that you 'man removepkg' from cli. You should get a clear definition. Technically, 'removepkg' removes the defined slackware packages and looks to make sure that removing parts will not effect others.

READ the 'man removepkg'!

Arow, removepkg is part of the Slackware pkgtools.

The /opt dir was added to the standard LFSH list to accomodate programs like KDE which don't respect the normal directroy structure under /usr or /usr/local. Basically, programs which install under /opt can be arranged any way they want or need to be(most distros will install at least the config files to /etc).