debian partitioning

kpachopoulos · 08-22-2004, 01:23 PM

i used cfdisk to partition my HD. I've created hda1 as the root partition and hda2 as swap. Is it right to register the swap partition as primary?

HappyTux · 08-22-2004, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by nocturna_gr
i used cfdisk to partition my HD. I've created hda1 as the root partition and hda2 as swap. Is it right to register the swap partition as primary?

Yes and you may want to make one more partition for /home as well. You can have 4 primary partitions or 3 primary and 1 extended partition (this one can have many logical partitions in it to allow you to have more than 4 partitions) on a hard drive.

kpachopoulos · 08-22-2004, 01:48 PM

thanks

darkleaf · 08-22-2004, 01:56 PM

What's the difference between primary and extended partitions?

HappyTux · 08-22-2004, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by darkleaf
What's the difference between primary and extended partitions?

A primary partition is one single partition to itself. An extended partition is a container that holds logical partitions my HD's for example.

Code:

[HappyTux:/home/stephen]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1          31      248976   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda2   *          32         639     4883760   83  Linux
/dev/hda3             640        1855     9767520   83  Linux
/dev/hda4            1856       14593   102317985    5  Extended
/dev/hda5            1856        7934    48829536   83  Linux
/dev/hda6            7935       14593    53488386   83  Linux

Disk /dev/hdd: 40.0 GB, 40037760000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4867 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hdd1               1          32      257008+  82  Linux swap
/dev/hdd2   *          33         640     4883760   83  Linux
/dev/hdd3             641        1856     9767520   83  Linux
/dev/hdd4            1857        4867    24185857+  83  Linux

As you can see my larger drive I have partitioned up into 5 pieces the /dev/hda4 does not count it as it is only the container for the 2 logical partitions hda5 and hda6 which take up the entire space inside it. You can tell this by looking at the starting and ending blocks for the hda4 then adding together the hda5 and hda6. Whereas the smaller one is only the 4 primary partitions.

darkleaf · 08-22-2004, 03:43 PM

Thanks!