Although this is my first post, I've had a system running Ubuntu server for 6+ months, as well as Linux distros on my laptop and netbook. Now I'm working on migrating my primary desktop running Windows XP to Lubuntu.

I've got Lubuntu installed and the dual-boot working. My "problem" is disk management... how best to migrate a mature, extensive, multi-disk and multi-partition XP setup to Linux. I have 16 partitions on 3 HDD's totaling 4TB. I'm trying to identify what can be migrated straight to Linux, what needs to remain available to both OS's, what will be Wine drives, etc. But I'm having trouble since I can't seem to visualize what the final Linux setup should look like.

All of the posts that I've found are for relatively simple configurations. And I think my issue is more theoretical/philosophical than the actual commands. I just can't visualize it for Linux. On my server I did have to add additional disks, but the needs there were very cut-and-dried. Even so, I still divided my HDD's up into 1TB partitions just out of paranoia.

So, for those of you who have multiple HDD's, how do you manage them? Do you let Linux manage the whole thing as a single partition? Do you chunk them up? If they don't need to be divided because of defrag, are there other reasons that still apply to Linux? With the latest disks is there still any practical/noticeable difference in performance between the beginning of the disk and the end? Does segregating data to minimize risk of corruption apply in Linux? Should Wine drives be on a separate partition?

All opinions welcome,

su

Additional details:

My disk management strategy has been old-school, ie, partition your spindles so you can take advantage of fast zones and put more static data in the slow zones, as well as having smaller sizes to defrag. I've also always adhered to "get as much off the system disk as you can" and have re-directed many of XP's default locations to other partitions. Years of running windows does leave one a little paranoid about data loss... and I've never had the funds to go for RAID.

My goal is to replace as much as I can with Linux native software and run some of the more critical XP software under Wine. Then I'd like to encapsulate the existing/remaining XP into a virtual machine. There is a lot of stuff installed and some of it won't migrate to Linux, or even newer Windows. If I can't encapsulate the XP then I'll leave the system as dual-boot since I can't risk losing complete access to some of this older stuff, and I don't always know what I need until the moment a specific need comes up. Also, I've got archived DVD's that require some of these programs.

I realize the existing XP installation needs to be "simplified" whether it is to be encapsulated or left as dual-boot, so I'm currently working on moving temp files and such back to the windows system disk.

Can you post the partitioning of ypur XP installation?

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Sure, here is what it looks like:

disk1 [1TB]
55 GB - [C:] XP sys [primary]
200 GB - unallocated
100 GB - [G:] downloads, iso's, web stuff
150 GB - [L:] music library
200 GB - [Z:] backups
226.49 GB - [X:] backups

disk2 [1TB]
10 GB - [V:] dedicated win page file [primary]
20 GB - [J:] sys files shared between OS' & games [primary]
700 GB - [E:] video library
201.49 GB - [Y:] backups

disk3 [2TB]
1 GB - linux boot part [primary]
10 GB - [U:] dedicated win page file [primary]
12 GB - linux swap [primary]
31.95 GB - linux root
130 GB - linux /home
130 GB - [D:] data (the relocated My Documents)
610 GB - [F:] video capture & editing
171.49 GB - [H:] static data (copies of CD's)
200 GB - [W:] backups
55 GB - copy of XP sys disk (not mounted on windows)
511.54 GB - unallocated

--This was not the original placement of these partitions as I recently replaced a drive and had to move things around.
--I've indicated the primary partitions, the rest are obviously logical. I'm stuck with MBR because of the need for XP.
--The 200GB unallocated space on disk1 had originally held a 20GB partition for temp/cache files and a 180GB partition intended for Win7. I've since decided against Win7 in favor of Linux, and have already relocated the temp/cache files back to the system disk.
--I've always used dedicated partitions to keep my pagefiles from becoming fragmented, to spread them across spindles and to keep them at the beginning of the disks. However, moving forward I'm going to put 1 pagefile on the sys disk and put the 2nd pagefile on the shared sys partition, thereby eliminating those 2 partitions.
--I'm working on converting family VHS tapes to DVD which needs lots of space, and I'm not sure whether these remain ntfs or migrate to Linux.
--I plan on splitting the data disk: moving a lot of the useless folders that windows creates in My Documents back to the system disk but leaving most of my data/document files on ntfs so they can be shared.
--I made my root and /home partitions much larger than necessary because I'm not sure what Wine needs.

Notes.

You also have other ways to manage space.

A widely used tool LVM can manage space across a number or resources.

Not sure you need it but software raid could be used also.

Advanced file systems like ZFS, BTRFS might be looked at.

Do wine drives need to be unique? Not sure I know the answer. Kind of depends on how much you need that data and of course overheard in wine will still be OS level. It used to be that on older ide systems you could benefit from locations. Not sure that still holds true on sata connections.

Go crazy and get a PCI-E SSD.

My suggestion would be to create an XP virtual machine within your Linux environment. I have a virtual XP machine that runs in a 5GB partition, including the old software that I need to run. I then use Samba to make my Windows NTFS and FAT partitions available to the XP virtual machine. The Windows applications run natively, so no need to mess with WINE.
Good luck with trying to encapsulate an existing XP installation. It has never been successful for me, just too many problems with the HAL. I have encapsulated an existing Win98 install, but it would have been quicker and easier just to start with a clean install.

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Thanks for your responses. I think I'm making progress. While listing out the info to reply to Keruskerfuerst's request, it occurred to me that I could use Lubuntu's Xpad to create sticky notes. So I created a new desktop and created a sticky note for each partition, which let me move things around and play with the results. Like using real sticky notes but easier. When you just can't visualize it in your head, use something else. Of course, in the middle of manipulating my partitions I had a moment of stupidity and deleted a partition from the windows side and instead of deleting the single logical partition it deleted all of them. And I KNOW better than to do any partition work from windows!!! Oh well, SystemRescueCD to the rescue! I do hate windows... I do, I Do, I DO!!!

I also found this post that addresses some of the things that I had questions about (zones, # of partitions, etc). That leaves Wine as my biggest unknown, which I'm still working on. I think I have an idea of what I want it to look like, now it's a matter of testing it out on a small enough scale so that if I've completely misunderstood I don't have to re-do everything.

Allend, your comment about starting fresh being easier than encapsulating is probably true and has me thinking. I've got a couple of installed programs that I can no longer can get the installation files for, so keeping the existing XP is absolutely necessary. But those specific programs deal with attached hardware, so they might not work inside a VM anyway. Maybe a half-and-half solution... create a fresh XP inside a VM and re-install what I can to it, and then leave the existing XP available to dual-boot for the things I can't re-install. Unfortunately, I know I'm going to wind up with some Wine programs because at least one of my gotta-have programs runs OK in Wine but is an absolute dog in a VM - and this is from the developer himself!

jefro, SSD's and LVM are surely in the future - just not the immediate future! Unless there really IS a Santa...

Thanks again,

su

Linux uses a single file system across all mounted partitions. Linux files have permissions in their metadata. You secure files with your permissions settings and not by what partition the file is located on. Microsoft file systems do not have permissions so they cannot be secured with permissions. I don't know how to secure Microsoft files on Linux since I haven't ever used Microsoft files on Linux.

I set up partitions for performance and to allow me to run and maintain several Linux distributions on the same machine. I have my partitions set up so that I can install a new distribution without disturbing my data or my other distributions. When the new distribution is stable I erase the distribution that it is replacing, again without disturbing my data or other distributions.

The two factors in disk performance are seek time and rotational delay. You minimize seek time by placing your busiest files in the middle of the disk. Rotational delay is the same for any position on the disk. You minimize rotational delay by either setting the block size to the sector size or by command chaining reads and writes. I think that the Linux buffer handler does command chaining. (Note: command chaining is a term I learned in 1967. Current disks may use a different term.)

Yes. Linux segregates data by using permissions.

I think that you segregate Wine drives and files used by a VM by using containers which is an elaborate use of permissions. A container often uses a chroot jail.

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Steve Stites

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