What partitioning scheme do you use?

Dman58 · 05-13-2015, 05:42 PM

I'm curious to know what types of drive partitioning everyone uses. There are tons of configurations out there so please share how you allocate your drive or drives.

Have you upgraded to an ssd? Is your OS separate from the data?

Here is my setup: Desktop - / 20Gb, swap equal to RAM, /boot around 300Mb, and /home the rest of the drive

I have put /home on an entirely separate drive in the past and plan on doing it again.

Please share your experiences

yooy · 05-13-2015, 06:05 PM

I was early adopter of ssd, but when external drive enclousure died i put disk from it inside my pc. Never use partitioning always do "use entire hard drive" in Lubuntu instalation process. The choosen filesystem is ext4.

mralk3 · 05-13-2015, 07:04 PM

It really depends on what the machine is being purposed for...

Desktops that do not require encrypted file systems, I put the swap equal to ram at the start of the drive and use the rest of the drive for /.

Laptops I always set up a encrypted file system and make one partition for root at 20Gb and use the rest for /home, swap equal to ram.

For servers it's hard to say because it really depends on the task(s) the machine will be required to do.

maples · 05-13-2015, 08:12 PM

Well, that's an interesting question...

See the screenshot for my mess of a laptop; no CLI output that I know of can do it justice.
It's a GPT disk that came with Windows 8 that I (unfortunately) still need to boot into every now and then. I set it up thinking that I would be distro hopping, but I installed Arch and never looked back. And I'm nowhere near running out of room anywhere, so I really don't have the motivation to do something about it.

My Debian server, on the other hand, is a lot better:

Code:

root@maples-server:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1        30G  8.3G   20G  30% /
tmpfs           4.0G  4.0K  4.0G   1% /tmp
/dev/sdd2        64G   50G   11G  83% /var
/dev/md0        458G  279G  156G  65% /srv
/dev/sda3       246G   23G  221G  10% /home

(irrelevant tmpfs/udev ommitted)

md0 spans sdb and sdc, and is the equivalent (actually, another copy of) the shared NTFS partition on my laptop.

I also have a Eee PC 901 that has two SSDs: 4GB and 16GB. I usually end up using a lot of /home on it, so the 4GB drive contains everything except /home, which is on the other one.

frankbell · 05-13-2015, 08:43 PM

/ = 20 or 25 GB.

If RAM is less than 4 GB, swap = RAM. If the RAM is 4 GB or more, swap = 1/2 RAM, except for a laptop that I might want to hibernate, but, frankly, hibernate is a function I've never had much taste for.

Everything is goes into /home.

rokytnji · 05-13-2015, 09:25 PM

Quote:

See the screenshot for my mess of a laptop; no CLI output that I know of can do it justice.

Maybe

Code:

df -h --total

may pick up both drives on that 900. Edit: oops. Misread your post. My bad.

On my little 64gig ssd intel atom netbooks. I do a small 6 gig root for AntiX. Then a 10 gig /home.
Then the rest is /data.

I edit /etc/fstab to automount /data in /media/data_ and make a directory /media/data_
I give my user name to read and write permission in /data.
Then drag and drop everything that holds big things in /home/username like music,videos, ya know, big stuff MB folders. Also things like .conkyrc, xmms skins, ~/.themes, ans ~/.icons and maybe a copy of /etc/fstab or /etc/default/grub or /etc/X11 also.

Well drag and drop them in rox file manager and pick move to /media/data_. Copy for the copy stuff I mentioned above. Then redrag those back again (the /home/username big MB directories/folders),
to /home/username and pick symlink>relative.

My /home/username so far stays under 1 gig. My /media/data_ supports the load.
So on testing reinstalls I can just blow everything away and everything is already backed up.
Ready for the next round of testing. I use ext4 when xfs is not a choice on installing on SSD.
No /swap.

Like Devo said. Freedom of choice. That is my way of rolling with Linux lately.

PS. When I ran my 900 and 701SD eeepcs. I did like maples did with 4 gig ssd as /.
The 16 gig ssd as /home. Edited /etc/fstab and /media folder so it would work.
Ext2 file system since those phison ssd drives are kinda sensitive. No /swap.

The AntiX wiki is full of my eeepc workarounds when I had them.
This is the 1st I have mentioned on how I do their successors.

rtmistler · 05-14-2015, 07:16 AM

For my main system I install the OS to the on-system disk and use whatever it likes for partitioning, however the /home tree is always located in an off-system disk.

Habitual · 05-14-2015, 08:56 AM

Code:

df -hT  && inxi -p

speweth such:

Code:

Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1      ext4       19G  8.2G  9.2G  48% /
none           tmpfs     4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev           devtmpfs  7.9G  4.0K  7.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.6G  2.3M  1.6G   1% /run
none           tmpfs     5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none           tmpfs     7.9G  828K  7.9G   1% /run/shm
none           tmpfs     100M   20K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sda3      ext4      892G   66G  781G   8% /home
/dev/sdb1      ext4      917G   66G  805G   8% /media/jj/internal
/dev/sdc1      ext4      2.7T   66G  2.5T   3% /media/jj/external
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19G used: 8.2G (48%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /home size: 892G used: 66G (8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
           ID-3: /media/jj/internal size: 917G used: 66G (8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1
           ID-4: /media/jj/external size: 2.7T used: 66G (3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc1
           ID-5: swap-1 size: 8.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2

sgosnell · 05-14-2015, 09:31 AM

I use whatever works best on the drive. Sometimes everything in one partition, sometimes with a separate /home partition, sometimes with separate /boot, it really depends on what I want to do and why. IMO there is no one best way to partition a drive, for anyone.

Dman58 · 05-14-2015, 06:24 PM

Yikes I see most of you back up your data onto another drive I better get with the program. I've been meaning to back up my info but haven't gotten around to it yet.

@rokytnji - That seems like a lot of steps, and a ton of drag and dropping but I bet it's worth it because if you experience data loss everything is just a click away.

Also I thought more people would have a separate /boot partition but I guess that is overkill in most cases.

Habitual · 05-14-2015, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dman58

Yikes I see most of you back up your data onto another drive I better get with the program. I've been meaning to back up my info but haven't gotten around to it yet.

@rokytnji - That seems like a lot of steps, and a ton of drag and dropping but I bet it's worth it because if you experience data loss everything is just a click away.

Also I thought more people would have a separate /boot partition but I guess that is overkill in most cases.

Separate /home partition at the very least.

ReaperX7 · 05-14-2015, 07:48 PM

Partition 1: /boot - ext2
Partition 2: swap
Partition 3: /(root) - jfs
Partition 4 (actually disk 2): /home - ntfs (shared between multiple systems)

rokytnji · 05-14-2015, 09:02 PM

Details with a little help from Habitual to help you see my setup on this itty bitty Atom Net book.

First off. I screwed up the description as I have 3 of these netbooks (got em dirt cheap) and this one has a 60 gig zif pata platter drive.
So only
/ > with /home folder inside of root
/data
/swap

Even simpler than the other that I described.

Code:

harry@antix1:~
$ ls -l
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 5 harry harry 4096 Mar 19 17:52 batti-0.3.8
-rwxr-xr-x 1 harry harry 4406 Mar  3 22:48 clir
-rwxr-xr-x 1 harry harry 4433 Mar  3 20:37 cliradio
drwxr-xr-x 2 harry users 4096 Mar 19 17:51 Desktop
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   27 Mar 19 17:39 Documents -> ../../media/_data/Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 harry users 4096 May  1 08:26 Downloads
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   23 Mar 19 17:46 icons -> ../../media/_data/icons
drwxr-xr-x 2 harry harry 4096 May  1 08:26 Iphone
drwx------ 9 harry harry 4096 Mar 21 18:06 Mail
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   23 Mar 19 17:38 Music -> ../../media/_data/Music
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   26 Apr 30 21:49 Pictures -> ../../media/_data/Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 harry harry 4096 Apr 30 21:15 Screeny
drwxr-xr-x 3 harry harry 4096 Mar 19 17:50 stream
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   24 Mar 19 17:47 themes -> ../../media/_data/themes
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   23 Mar 19 17:37 Video -> ../../media/_data/Video
lrwxrwxrwx 1 harry harry   28 Mar 19 17:37 Wallpapers -> ../../media/_data/Wallpapers
harry@antix1:~

Code:

harry@antix1:~
$ df -hT  && inxi -p
Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev           devtmpfs   10M     0   10M   0% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     202M  620K  201M   1% /run
/dev/sda1      ext4       15G  3.8G  9.8G  29% /
tmpfs          tmpfs     5.0M  4.0K  5.0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.2G  4.0K  1.2G   1% /run/shm
/dev/sda5      ext4       37G  4.0G   31G  12% /media/_data
Partition: ID-1: / size: 15G used: 3.8G (29%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /media/_data size: 37G used: 4.0G (12%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.24GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2

Code:

harry@antix1:~
$ cat /etc/fstab
# Pluggable devices are handled by uDev, they are not in fstab
UUID=66edc50e-9cb4-4d92-a5a0-0ac3c1c6a84c / auto defaults,noatime 1 1
# /swap
UUID=382f5510-30a9-4453-abf2-ed218834396d  swap                                        swap       defaults                        0 0
# Added by rok_fstab /dev/sda5  label=/data
UUID=e3728887-6e16-4261-b727-4772665997e9  /media/_data  auto rw,user 0 0                              ext4       noauto,exec,users               0 0

Code:

harry@antix1:~
$ cat /etc/fstab
# Pluggable devices are handled by uDev, they are not in fstab
UUID=66edc50e-9cb4-4d92-a5a0-0ac3c1c6a84c / auto defaults,noatime 1 1
# Added by make-fstab /dev/sda2
UUID=382f5510-30a9-4453-abf2-ed218834396d  swap                                        swap       defaults                        0 0
# Added by make-fstab /dev/sda5  label=/data
UUID=e3728887-6e16-4261-b727-4772665997e9  /media/_data  auto rw,user 0 0                              ext4       noauto,exec,users               0 0

and the chaos looks like

http://i.imgur.com/132bgjU.jpg

and this is just a Beta testing install ready to blown away at any moment when the next release comes out because I am a team member tester on certain distros like this one.

Code:

$ inxi -S
System:    Host: antix1 Kernel: 4.0.0-antix.1-486-smp i686 (32 bit)
           Desktop: IceWM 1.3.8+githubmod+20150412+960629d
           Distro: antiX-15-beta1-V_386-full Killah P 16 March 2015

So the little extra work is worth it to me as I do not have as much
building to do when I erase this install when the time comes.

maples · 05-15-2015, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rokytnji

PS. When I ran my 900 and 701SD eeepcs. I did like maples did with 4 gig ssd as /.
The 16 gig ssd as /home. Edited /etc/fstab and /media folder so it would work.
Ext2 file system since those phison ssd drives are kinda sensitive. No /swap.

When you had yours, did it seem like the SSDs were really slow?

Code:

[root@maples-eee ~]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   1206 MB in  2.00 seconds = 603.17 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  98 MB in  3.01 seconds =  32.51 MB/sec
[root@maples-eee ~]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   1202 MB in  2.00 seconds = 600.72 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  90 MB in  3.06 seconds =  29.43 MB/sec

Even my desktop/server with 8-year-old spinning rust can get faster than that:

Code:

root@maples-server:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:   6990 MB in  2.00 seconds = 3496.86 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 178 MB in  3.03 seconds =  58.79 MB/sec

rokytnji · 05-15-2015, 06:47 AM

Quote:

When you had yours, did it seem like the SSDs were really slow?

Phison read and write speeds are nothing to brag about. Plus mine were the celeron models while yours is a atom n270. I think the read speeds
were in the 25 to 35 MB read range.

Mine I bumped to 2 gig of ram. Which helped a little.
If you go with a better drive. You might be surprised
at the improvement. Asus. When they built those.
Went with the cheapest components that was available
at the time. To keep the sale price down and hopefully make
a profit. I was always taking apart my touchpad on the 900 and
fixing the left click mouse button on mine because of cheap components.