I was just wondering about how i should partition up my hard drive...
Im going to install Slackware 10.0
My computer is mainly going to be used for gaming, and the hard drive space is 37.26 GB...
Ive allready looked at the small tutorial on this website and from that, I guess I could do something like this...

root 7.26 gb
usr 15 gb
opt 13 gb
swap 2 gb

Would that be logical? Any hints, tips, or rule of thumbs would be helpfull!
Thanks for any help ahead of time!

take more time to think about it ...
cause from what you have shown, you have two "wasted" partitions that i can see ...
first off 2GB for a swap is just ridicoulous ....
and you probably will hardly use /opt (unless you have plans to)
so if not, then get rid of some of that too ....

and one recommendation is to seperate your /home partition since that is where your user
will store and download stuff too, and in the future if your decided to format you can leave
partition in tact with all your stored stuff ...

but hey thats up to you

the only reason as i can see it to make a bunch of partitions
is to limit space used by something or someone

i would use a /boot patrition of 100Mb for kernels and junk
my reason for a seperate partition /boot is it's not mounted in my fstab
so if power goes hurricane on me no possible corruption
and a 2 gig swap doesn't seem that crazy to me even though it will be mostly not used
it is a buffer to DOS attacks or something that might swamp you
the rest i would just make as one partition /

i'm a one partition guy all the way
but this is one of those almost religious (no evidence zones) guaranteed to make flames

Well, I do like that one partition idea, but im not shure how i could do that....
and for partitioning the disk and having the home folder seperated from the root, Im not shure how to do that...

so far im thinking about:

/root 10.26 (16.26 if i dont figure out how to split them)
/home 6
/usr 19
/opt 1
/swap 1

I am really new to Linux and am reading everything I can about the system layout. It is confusing as to what partitions are needed. I went to the slackware site and have printed off their configuration help, more confusion. Many directory are listed but what partition do you place them in??? Example, there is /bin, /boot, /dev, /home /etc and others.
Is there a relation between partition and directory???
Thank you...please note I have purchased some Linux books paying a fair price and do research the stuff. This forum is a prime place to go for answers.

yeah im curious about how exactly to partition the drives out too... like

Device Id system
/dev/hda1 83 Linux (this is where the OS is right?)
/dev/hda2 5 Extended (For the logical drives, like /root, /boot, ect.)
/dev/hda5 82 Linux Swap (for /swap)
now for the other partitions I want, does it matter what ID they are? and how does the os or whatever reads the partitions recognize which partion is which?
oh yeah, Do I have to worry about file systems when installing slackware?

... Then again, I looked at the gentoo documentation about its partitioning, just to see if i could get some of it, and I like how they have their scheme set up... so i can try this...

/dev/hda1 1 gb (boot)
/dev/hda2 1 gb (swap)
/dev/hda3 rest of the hard drive (root)

Mainly what im not shure about is... How does linux choose which partition is which (exept for swap, that has a different id number) when it has the same Id number? Does it automaticly decide this on its own, or do you decide which partition is which? @_@

and for you flyright, there is a tutorial on this website that might help you...
just find the blue bar on top and find tutorials, then click hardware, then find the Short Guide to Partitioning a Hard Drive for a Linux System and click that.
Hopefully this might help you!

You tewll the kernel which is the root partition (/) either by encoding it into the kernel image using rdev or by passing a boot parameter to the kernel (the standard way). The /etc/fstab file then tells the init program which other partitions to mount and where to mount them. This is why /etc MUST be part of the root filesystem, like /bin and /sbin (where init itself resides).

Ok, On the slackware Installation, I belive there is a command called "addswap" and "target".
Would those encode just the same as rdev or by passing a boot paramater?

I think so ... addswap is for adding your swap partition and I believe target lets you set partitions up (I've done so many Slack installs that I tend to breeze through them without really looking at what things are called). In any case, if you just follow the suggested path through the install program, everything will be set up correctly for you automatically. You only really have to worry about this when you need to change something or problems crop up.

thanks for all the help!
^_^

I'm a fairly new user, but from what I've learned so far, I'd do something like this. The actual system files don't take up that much room. Most of the program space will be taken up by whatever applications and programs you install, which generally go under /usr. And of course each user's personal files go in their home directory.

So I'd have:

/ = 1-3gb
/usr = ~10-15gb
/swp = equal to your installed memory or maybe a little more.
/home = whatever's left.

That should be plenty of room unless you are going to install lots of stuff, in which case /usr should be larger. Or just leave root and usr combined into one partition of 15-20 gb. You could also add the separate /boot partition as mentioned above, but that seems overly cautious to me as you can use a separate boot disk/live distro to boot up in the rare emergency. I don't see any need for anything more complicated than this for a simple gaming machine.

As for the file system (the format type) to use on your partitions, I'd say go with Ext3 for stability and Ext2 compatibility , or Reiserfs for performance. You can even mix & match them if you want.

Whats really required for a linux setup are two partitions: swap and / (root). These two cannot inhabit the same filesystem, and MUST have split residences. The most partition-save a system can be is two.
But there are advantages in having more than two, and people strive to gain performance/stability/reliance.
Having a spare /home is a nice thing for backup/upgrade purposes. Having a split /usr is good for performance, because this dir is constantly read, and you avoid fragmentation by spliting it. Even better if you put it in the begining of the disc.
If you blend all these concerns together with the traditional partitioning of ide harddisks (four primaries/extendeds, logical...) and location concerns, there you go: a good partitioning scheme.

If you have two disks, you can put your swap in the begining of the second, and gain a little more performance, also.

This one above, by David is good. I'd only put 1gb more for /usr. Say, 4-5GB.

I have /, /home and /usr separate. swap in the begining of the second. And I also have 4 backups whose are different partitions, and a last ext2 partition with a debian install, to learn about this great distro.

Some of you guys are right: swap can be equal to ram. Above 512 MB ram, you rarely use swap at all.

Obs - reiserfs is also quite reliable.

For /boot, 100 megabytes for it is too extreme unless you like eye-candy boot screens. 16 to 32 megabytes for /boot is enough to test a dozen kernels. If your bootloader is ok putting /boot at the end of the hard drive, you can place /boot at the end. You do not need speed for /boot.

For swap, you can make multiple partitions and then over time you can delete them or merge them together depending on usage. Make a few 128 megabye swap parititions. If 256 is ok, you can merge them. If 256 is not enough you can merge more swap partitions.

Almost all Linux filesystems defrag themselves, so you do not need to think of defragging.

/swp = 128 MB
/swp = 128 MB
/swp = 128 MB
/swp = 128 MB
/var = 256 MB (ReiserFS /w notail, noborder)
/usr = 10 -15 GB (either XFS or ReiserFS)
/tmp = 1 - 2 GB (either XFS or ReiserFS)
/ = 1 - 3 GB (either XFS or ReiserFS)
/home = the rest of the hard drive stopping at the last 16 - 32 MB (either EXT3, XFS, ReiserFS)
/boot = 16 - 32 MB (EXT3)

If you setup RAID 1, Linux is able to access files much faster. RAID 0 will not increase accessing Linux files. I think putting /var and /swp on a RAID 1 will reduce the performance. If you have an extra drive you can place /var and /swp on it.

If you use SCSI hard drives, accessing files will be faster than IDE because they are able to queue multiple commands.