Hullo all,

1.)
I have on hand a 60 GB HDD. The first 18 GB is occupied by win2k pro. I've been thinking of installing Debian GNU/Linux on the next 20 GB of HDD space. Some folks have told me that I should create a few partitions for Linux i.e. just in case anything untowards happen e.g. OS crash. I'm toying with the idea of setting aside 100 MB for boot (wonder if this is sufficient) and a Linux swap partition of 1000 MB. However, I'm not sure what to do with regards to the other directories e.g. home/ (only one other user on this box), /usr, /var and others? What would a good partition layout scheme be like given the above? Any suggestions?

2.) I will be using cfdisk to partition the HDD i.e. the free space available for Linux But I'm curious as to what Primary and Logical partitions are. What are they? How would choosing to install Linux or for that matter FreeBSD in either affect my Linux/FreeBSD installation and win2k?

3.)
I'm also planning to install FreeBSD 5.1 on this same HDD for which I have allocated 15 GB of space for it. I plan to only install FreeBSD only after I have installed Debian. Does anyone forsee problems relating to partitioning, booting into any of the 3 OSes i.e. Win2K, Debian & FreeBSD? Would and could FreeBSD erase both my windoze and Debian partitions? Can the 3 OSes co-exist with one another peacefully on the same HDD?

TIA

I. You only NEED 2 partitions for any linux distro. A "/" (root) and a swap. The swap is actually not NEEDED - if you have enough memory - but very highly recommended. The other partitions (/boot, /home, /tmp and so forth) are optional and are recommended if security is an issue. Yes, thay can help save valuable data if one partition becomes corrupted. In short, it's up to personal preference. 100 Mb is way more than you need for /boot. At the very most I'd go for 50 Mb (which is kind of overkill anyway) and only if you're a kernel-compiling demon (daemon). 1000 Mb for swap is also a little excessive. You'll be fine with half that.

2. There are actually three types of partitions: primary, extended and logical. You can only have 4 primary partitions on any device (disc). I'm not sure if non-PC based machines have this limitation. Primary partitions are numbered 1 through 4 in linux. Extended partitions are merely housings for logical partitions and do nothing by themselves. Logical partitions are contained on an extended partition and start at number 5 (even if you have less than 4 primary partitions). You can have as many of these as you like. This system was brought about to overcome the 4-partition problem. There are essentially no major logistical differences between primary and logical partitions but I believe you may have problems booting from a logical. FreeBSD only needs one partition which is then subdivided during installation into the whatever partitions are necessary (including swap).

5. There should be no problems booting the three OSes from the same disc. I have done this in the past. I used lilo and experienced no real problems. Any OS can wipe the other OSes on your drive if you let it. So don't let it. There is no OS I'm aware of (even windows) that will wipe any other partitions without consulting you. I've noticed that If I install windows not-first then it can corrupt the beginnings of other partitions. Therefore it's recommended you install it first.

Thank you very much. I suppose it will be safer to install both Debian 3.0 r 2 and FreeBSD 5.1 into Primary partitions then. And make /boot bootable in cfdisk. But should I also make the rest of the partitions that I want to create e.g. /var, /home, /usr bootable as well? TIA.

I told you it was a matter of personal preference. You don't have to. If you believe security may be a problem then it might be a good idea. You don't even need to make a /boot partition if you don't want to. Keep in mind, though that if you make one partition too small then later on it can be a pain to resize said partition. It is possible, though.

For just your run-of-the-mill personal computer security is nota huge concern. Some people like to be paranoid, though.

ok. Thanks again.