[SOLVED] Partition sizes for Lenny

Cultist · 02-07-2010, 07:37 PM

On a 320 GB harddrive, how would you set the partitions to run Debian? what sizes, etc

I've already got it installed, but I'm wondering how my little makeup compares to the way it actually should have been done (I'm sort of just winging it at the moment)

evo2 · 02-07-2010, 07:55 PM

It depends on what you want to use the system for. For laptops I put everything in one partition, for workstations at least a separate /home, on servers separate /,/usr,/var,/tmp,/home,/dataX and so on.

Evo2.

Cultist · 02-07-2010, 07:58 PM

for a laptop whose main uses are multimedia (movies/music), games (via PSX and GBA emulators), and productivity (openoffice, etc)

evo2 · 02-07-2010, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cultist

for a laptop whose main uses are multimedia (movies/music), games (via PSX and GBA emulators), and productivity (openoffice, etc)

I've never had a laptop with more than a 40 GB drive. In your case with over 300, I'd probably give about 50 Gb to / and the rest to /home (plus a couple of GB for swap).

This way you will have plenty of space for the OS (in reality 20 GB should be more than enough), and since your /home is on a separate partition you can easily reinstall from scratch without loosing all you data/media.

But I'm sure others will have conflicting opinions.

Evo2.

craigevil · 02-07-2010, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by evo2

I've never had a laptop with more than a 40 GB drive. In your case with over 300, I'd probably give about 50 Gb to / and the rest to /home (plus a couple of GB for swap).

This way you will have plenty of space for the OS (in reality 20 GB should be more than enough), and since your /home is on a separate partition you can easily reinstall from scratch without loosing all you data/media.

But I'm sure others will have conflicting opinions.

Evo2.

Sounds about right. / /home and /swap is all you really need, unless installing on a server. I don't even bother with /home since I keep everything important backed up on a 16gb usb drive and a 16gb sdhc card.

repo · 02-08-2010, 01:26 AM

Quote:

I don't even bother with /home since I keep everything important backed up on a 16gb usb drive and a 16gb sdhc card.

If you have a separate /home, all your settings will be saved when you reinstall.

Cultist · 02-08-2010, 02:30 PM

I actually had to reinstall debian last night because of a giant dumb mistake I made that I'm not going to go into :P but since I had the opportunity to redo my partitions before the install, I made the partitions 60 gb /, 2.7gb swap, and the remainder (250-something)gb as /home. should I have given more into swap? I was trying to make it 5 gb but it kept giving me trouble with the resize so I just left it at 2.7.

repo · 02-08-2010, 02:58 PM

Quote:

should I have given more into swap?

On a 4 GB system swap won't be used allot.

Quakeboy02 · 02-08-2010, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cultist

I actually had to reinstall debian last night because of a giant dumb mistake I made that I'm not going to go into :P but since I had the opportunity to redo my partitions before the install, I made the partitions 60 gb /, 2.7gb swap, and the remainder (250-something)gb as /home. should I have given more into swap? I was trying to make it 5 gb but it kept giving me trouble with the resize so I just left it at 2.7.

60gb seems like an awfully big "/" drive; you're not really going to be using more than 20 unless you make a real effort at it. There are plenty of arguments, err discussions, about the proper swap size.

the trooper · 02-09-2010, 07:40 AM

Quote:

60gb seems like an awfully big "/" drive; you're not really going to be using more than 20 unless you make a real effort at it.

I'd say it depends if the op is looking to play games on the machine.
I know from my own machine Q4 takes up around 4gb of space on the hard drive alone.
So if you have a number of games installed plus a 'full' Linux install 20gb probably won't be enough.

Cultist · 02-09-2010, 09:45 AM

thanks all

Quakeboy02 · 02-09-2010, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the trooper

I'd say it depends if the op is looking to play games on the machine.
I know from my own machine Q4 takes up around 4gb of space on the hard drive alone.
So if you have a number of games installed plus a 'full' Linux install 20gb probably won't be enough.

But why would you put that stuff in "/"?

the trooper · 02-09-2010, 11:19 AM

Quote:

But why would you put that stuff in "/"?

I'm not suggesting putting stuff in "/".
Most of the Linux games i've installed install to /usr/local/games or /usr/games.

Quakeboy02 · 02-09-2010, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the trooper

I'm not suggesting putting stuff in "/".
Most of the Linux games i've installed install to /usr/local/games or /usr/games.

That's still in "/" as far as I'm concerned unless you've moved /usr to a separate partition or disk. My practice is to leave Linux to Linux, and put my stuff on "/data". I know, it's not standard, but I feel it works better on the home desktop.

the trooper · 02-09-2010, 11:39 AM

Exactly right.
So when you install a game to /usr/wherever,space is used in the "/" partition.
Hence why i was suggesting 20gb for the "/" partition may be a little small.