I just recently plopped down some money to give my Linux box a good hard drive upgrade (used to be 20GB, now it's gonna be 80GB). Now on the 20GB, I just did only like 3 partitions....boot, the main root filesystem which contains everything else, and swap space. I am doing some reading up on the different directories and how certain ones should be mounted on separate partitions. My questions are this: how big should I make some of these partitions (/var and /usr for example). I know I've got 80GB to work with but I was just wanting maybe an average size I guess. Also, if I were to do a full install (or close to that) what directories in the file system do most of those files go. And finally...I was wondering if I could create a separate partition (rather large in size, probably 10-15GB) that I use for ONLY file shares between Linux and Windows.

Whew, having done the easy route for a while, I forgot what it was like to actually "manually" create and manage the partitions.

Hello,
Partitions are really easy and why would you want to creat seperate directories (Partitions) for each folder? I would make 8 10 gig partitions and have your windows on one (if you use it), then you could try out 9 distros. If you are stuck on one distro and want to duel boot with only one distro and windows then you could do the multi partition thing but I would still not.

just mt 2 cents!

I have Linux on a separate computer....no way do I want Windows on the same drive as Linux....might make Tux sick or something. Also, I am quite happy with Fedora. There may be a time that I may change distros....like once my skills are good enough, I might shoot for something a little more complicated. But right now, Fedora is staying. Must say, I never have tried dual booting distros (or heck, I could try like triple or qadruple boot....*writes this down on his list of geeky things to do*)

Basically I just wanna really dive into doing things in a more efficient way by doing the multiple partitions....not only that as I can save myself headache later down the road when I won't have to worry about losing my Home partition when changing distros or whatever. I have done Linux partitioning before....but I feel as if I overdid things before like making sizes too big and what not b/c I wasn't sure how big to make em. Basiclaly being uncertain last time, and this time around, I want to be more certain.

I'll do some more reading up on. My big question though is still the one with the Samba shares being its own entire partition.

bump

i thought i was the only one with a list

hey, i'm after the exact same answer and am just searching around for it. i'll let you know when i find it if no one answers our querry.

cheers

S unite

bah, i want to install it already

i'm going with
/ = 3.5GB
/home = 15 GB
swap = 2GB since i have 1 Gig of memory

or should i make two x 1 gig swap partitions? hmm. newb wonders...

I always do swap space about double what my memory is...and honestly from use, it never fills it up.

In fact, I just ran a crap load of programs earlier just to test....at 510MB of swap, only 150 got used...and my memory maxed at 170 of 256. I am even more impressed with Linux after this. Most Windows machines would choke (even with the same specs) at the amount of stuff I had open. After this, I think having 1 swap partition is plenty. Of course, I am not a heavy gamer...I never have tried a lot of games on Linux...of course there isn't many games to begin with.

I think I will separate the partitions a litle though...having /home separate, /var, etc.

Partition schemes differ depending on use of the box. Honestly, I hope you don't run out of room on the / partiton. Currently the way you have your HD partitioned /usr is under / . If you end up installing alot of software / will fill up because most programs install in /usr by default.

My linux box (with an 80GB hd) is partitioned as such:
/ - 1GB
/usr - 10 GB
/home - 20GB
/var - 512MB
/tmp - 512MB
/finn - 45GB (samba file server (mp3s and the like))
/swap - 1GB

That leaves just a bit left over in case I need it for something else.

A good rule of thumb for swap space is at least twice your RAM. Although on older boxes a swap of over a gig isn't really usable (or so I've been told).

The key to partitioning is to make sure each of your partitions isn't going to run out of space. So for instance if your going to be running a webserver that is going to generate alot of logs, you'd want to make your /var partition larger so your logs won't fill it up.

Wow. I didn't even know you could run dual swaps. As far as partitioning goes, I wouldn't really worry about separate partitions for /var and /usr. I guess if you had a bunch of programs that lived only in /var and /usr, and if you reinstalled the exact same distro frequently, it may be handy to avoid reinstalling all these programs. But if you install a different distro, chances are you're going to wipe out /var and /usr anyway. For the average user, everything that needs to be saved on a reinstall is probably in the home directory...or could be moved there. I always partition 7.5 gigs for the / partition, and I never fill it more than half way. Everything else is on /home. And with 512 megs of physical ram, I'm realizing that a gig of swap is huuuge overkill. The convention of creating twice as much swap as memory seems a bit dated. I mean, theoretically I have a gig and a half of ram....what the hell do I need that for? I definitely would have been fine with half as much swap. Sorry, I'm ranting now. But I have a spare 2 gig drive floating around, so I'm curious how you partition. I almost want to reinstall the core OS on the 2 gig...I'm just not sure how much I'd have to partition to my bigger drive to make the full slack install fit on the 2g drive. Good luck.

AFAIK you can't have more than 1 swap partition. The double-the-ram swap space parigigm is probably a bit dated, but considering how cheap HD space is now, devoting 1GB to swap doens't bother me. That being said I never use more than 1GB for swap as I've never seen it come close to using that much.

FYI it is possible to have more then 1 swap partition. I believe the limit is 128 partitions with each being 2GB in size. IMHO most normal users can get by with a single 512MB swap.

If by older boxes you mean older kernels then you are correct. If I remember 2.2 Kernels could only have 8 swap partitions of 2GB each and the 2.0 kernels were 128MB swap partitions.

Thanks for the info, I never knew you could have more than one swap partition. But now that I think about it I suppose it would come in very handy in some circumstances. Also, yes I did mean older kernels

ahh thank you. exactly what i was looking for. i was wondering what happens to programs i install. thought they might go into /home.

what does go into /home as opposed to /usr?

also, what about a partition for /boot, is it necessary?

edit: also, say i mount all of those directories and leave / at around 500MB. how could it fill up?

Well if you have /tmp and /var as partitions I can't think of anything that would write to / except for things you put in /root which is roots home directory. A /boot partition isn't nessary, though if your going to be mucking with multi-booting alot, or doing alot of kernel recompiles it wouldn't be a bad idea.

When you install a program, depending on the program, the binary executable is usually installed in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. If the program is something only root or the system would use, it will go in /usr/sbin or /usr/local/sbin.

/home is what you make of it. It's basically the equivelent of "My Documents" in windows. Your mail is sometimes delievered here (depending on how you have your mail server setup), your *rc files are here and any files particular to you are in your home directory (cookies and bookmarks for instance).