CORRECTION:
Quote:
Make sure you do not have a separate partition for /boot. Things look better in GRUB if you keep /boot in the root partition.
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this is in reference to a multiboot setup with windows, from
http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/...with-GRUB.html
whitelamp,
welcome!
correct me if i am wrong, but i am hearing that you want this to be painless, no? the level of complexity you must choose depends on what you want to do.
i don't know the fedora installer, but the ubuntu installer lets you 'use the remaining space' on the drive, and will automagically calculate partition sizes for you. one thing to realize is you probably don't want to share too much in terms of partitions unless you know what you are doing.
i will put my suggestions in order, the simpler first.
1) don't share any partitions. you can create a placehoder partion taking up half of available space in fdisk (eg. from ubuntu livecd, but not installer program). exit, and install ubuntu telling the installer to auto partition available space. it can put ubuntu in one partition + a swap partition.
from the ubuntu boot, use fdisk again to remove the dummy partition. now install fedora, that should allow you to do the same (use the remaining space). that is a suggestion to avoid errors from partition resizing.
don't forget handyman's advice about editing your menu.lst.
2) share swap. the fedora installer should let you select the swap created by the ubuntu installer.
3) user's home directories. these should be seperate for fc6 and ubuntu. (ie. fc6 home directory should not be the same place as ubuntu. that is different from saying the home directory should live seperate from the system.) this will be the case already if you installed as i suggested. the reason is your applications aren't guaranteed to be 100% compatible between distros, and if you change settings that may be reflected in the . files stored in the home directories. but you may want your 3 users to have a consistent access to data (docs, mp3s, etc.) between the 2 distros.
figure out a good size for all the storage, and create a partition for it. if you change linux distros and keep this, it will remain which is good news. you can symlink from the home directories to the users' directories on the data partition. not directly, but a la /home/suzy/doc-->/data/suzy/doc etc. if you create this partition first, stick it at the end. then create a placehoder from fdisk carving the remaining space in 2, and the rest of the install as above. don't forget to 'chown -R suzy /data/suzy', then users can access data.
if you want get picky about your swap, others may have relevant comments but i hear 2 * ram is the rule, though i wouldn't go over 1.5gb.
ext3 is a good filesystem. i wouldn't pick anything else without good reason. also, plan to make backups of critical data. either get a 2nd hard disk or use optical media.
4) special usage cases. ask yourself if you want to run any kind of server. i don't know much about this, but email servers i believe use /var, logs are stored there and so on. the reason to separate system partitions from the main one is in the case that users take all available storage--the system can't operate. (eg. emails don't get stored.)
there may be more that can be safely shared, but you may want to get more comfortable with linux before attempting that (it seems you want this to be usable;-).
beyond that, if you don't need enhanced security or any kind of server, i don't think there is a convincing reason for a beginning linux user to use seperate partitions for everything. unless you just want to run it like an enterprise machine.
disclaimer--most people here know more than me ;-)