Partition type LVM & Raid
 

Hi, I have already installed Red Hat 9 using workstation option and automatic disk partitioning on my laptop. Installed without any problems.

However since then I have done an online course based on Red Hat 7.2. During the course I was told that during installation I must create sperate partitions for var, usr, usr/local, swap, home, boot, not to mention root directories.

I don't understand why Red Hat 9 does not force me to create these. Red Hat 9 only required the creation of root.

Anyway, I am currently trying install Red Hat 9 on my old Pentium MMX 200 to use a home Internet ( through ADSL/ROUTER with ADSL connection )getway for my windoz laptop. I am using a Sybex book by Michael Chang. For partitioning he suggests creating four LVM partitions, four software raid partitions and the rest for root.

Before I proceed with this can anyone explain what happens to other stuff such as usr, var, usr/local etc. The book does not elaborate beside saying all we become clear later...? I do not understand LVM have a basic understanding of RAID.

As you will see Red Hat 9 has created Swap and boot automatically. The swap is correctly twice the size of my memory, 90 mb.

My old pentium has two hard drives. One has six gigs and the other one gig. The first gig on larger drive is occupied by win2k. The rest is partitioned for linux ext3. Druid can see them all.


My hard drives as seen by Druid:

/dev/hda
/dev/hda1, (no mount point) type, ntfs 3079mb start 1 end 417.
/dev/hda2/ (no mount point) extended 3071mb start 418 end 833

/dev/hda5 /boot mount point, type ext3, 103mb, start 418, end 431
/dev/hda6 / root mount point, type ext3, 2776mb, start 432, end 807.
/dev/hda7 ( no mount point ), type SWAP, 192mb, start 808, end 833.

/dev/hdb
/dev/hdb1 (no mount point), type ext3 (unformatted), 1035mb, start 1, end 132


Shall I continue with LVM and RAID partions or keep it simple by creating usr/ dev/ etc???


I thank you in advance for your support.

Regards
Siawash

****
I don't understand why Red Hat 9 does not force me to create these. Red Hat 9 only required the creation of root.
****

This is due to cencern on ease of use. Creating only / and swap allows the system to run without taking the user to technical details on partitioning. It's nice for a novice, but unnecessary for a long time user. But you can always change the partitioning setup to use expert configs, and do everything manually.



*****
Shall I continue with LVM and RAID partions or keep it simple by creating usr/ dev/ etc???
*****

Keep it simple. If you wanna learn more about lvm and raid, take a look at the ldp (www.ldp.org) howto's.

LVM & Raid
 

Thanks for that, Burnoboys!

swap partition
 

Hi again, I read that if you have two hard disks it is best to split the swap partitions between the two disks.

If that is the case, I would like to know if the swap partitions are divided evenly across the two disks. In my case I am dealing with one 3 gig partitioned disk where the root is and another hdd with 1 gig capacity.

thanks in advance

If you want to split the swap in two, you can do it. The benefits in performance may be a bit difficult to measure, but it is quite feasible.
Is performance a concern to you? If it is, let me know. I'll give you a few more tips.

swap partition and server option
 

Thanks for that bit of advice. Yes, I went ahead and created two swap partitions 50/50 over the two disk. However, Linux seems to be having problems with the second and smaller hard drive. I checked to get Linux to check bad blocks and seems to have found one.

The funny thing is that the drive seems to work fine in windows. I am going to take it and try with one 3 gig disk. It's actually a 6 gig disk but 50% used by windows. I might try a scandisk first.

Another question I have is regarding installing Linux server option. Is it true that if I choose DHCP server Linux deletes all data including windows.

Remeber I need to use Linux to access Internet viar ADSL/MODEM/ROUTER. Then share the access to my windoz laptop via a second NIC installed in Linux machine.

I hope I have explained it clearly.

I forgot to mention, this purely for training and exploration purposes. I am a full time student on my holidays. I intend to spend at least some of the summer holidays learning LINUX. Just wanted to experiement with swap partitions over two drives.

Regards
Siawash

Installation update
 

Hello the installation has moved quite a bit since the partitions.
It seemed to install fine but each time i get to select the packages and it began to format. I get the following message;

YOU ARE TRYING TO INSTALL ON A MACHINE WHICH IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THIS RELEASE OF RED HAT LINUX.

Here is my hardware;

Pentium 200 mmx
HDD 6 GIG IDE SEAGATE
RAM 97 MB SIMM
IDE CD ROM DRIVE
IDE CD ROM BURNER
2 X 3COM NIC COMBO
FLOPPY

Could it be that I have been trying to install DHCP server?

I even got rid of windows to house a dedicated linux machine.

I have already installed it successfully as a workstation on my Pentium 3 650 laptop with 5 gig partion. This was a dual boot.

Hi siawash!
***********
Another question I have is regarding installing Linux server option. Is it true that if I choose DHCP server Linux deletes all data including windows.
***********

No, man!! This sounds like terrorism to me! Who said that?


*********
Remeber I need to use Linux to access Internet viar ADSL/MODEM/ROUTER. Then share the access to my windoz laptop via a second NIC installed in Linux machine.
********

Ok, nice setup. I made this myself some time ago, with redhat 9.0. If I can remember well, there's an option called "kernel tuning" inside some system menu, on kde. Hack a bit and you'll find it. Inside kernel tuning there's "ip forward", which is what you need. Ip forward will let you forward packets from eth1 to eth0, thus allowing the second machine to access internet.
If it doesn't work, try this:
http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Masq...WTO/index.html



******
I forgot to mention, this purely for training and exploration purposes. I am a full time student on my holidays. I intend to spend at least some of the summer holidays learning LINUX. Just wanted to experiement with swap partitions over two drives.
******

Very nice. Hope you'll like it!

*******
Could it be that I have been trying to install DHCP server?

I even got rid of windows to house a dedicated linux machine.
*******

No, it couldn't. DHCP won't erase anything.
Well, getting rid of win is always a good thing, he he he.... Serious: it wasn't necessary to erase it, but... now it's too late.

The redhat msg is just a warning. Don't take it too serious. They might be trying to make themselves not responsible for any failures.

Error message
 

Hi bruno buys, did you see the other message.

It's not installing at all now.

It says

YOU ARE TRYING TO INSTALL ON A MCAHINE WHICH IS NOT SUPPORTED BY THIS RELEASE OF RED HAT LINUX.

Your read details of my hardware in earlier message.

I am clean out of ideas. I tried installing workstation. Manual option. Increased and decreases partion file systems. Could be a problem with Red Hat CD's ???

Oh! Sorry! I didn't figure out it was a halt.

Redhat installed before and now it doesn't?

Clarification
 

No I did't mean it installed on this machine. I have managed to install it on my P 3 laptop but not on the old p mmx.

Previously I installed as a workstation on my laptop with automatic root and boot partition. No usr, var, temp or anything like that.

If I don't figure out how to install on the older machine as dhcp server I might re-install on the laptop and configure a firewall instead.

Hmmm... right.

Redhat displayed this msg after you select packages, right? Which ones did you select? Graphical env., kde and stuff?

My best guess is: redhat needs at least 128MB ram to run all this.
The fastest way to check it would be to manage to get a 128 mem module with a friend, and try another install.

But please notice that even if you succeed in installing in 128mb, with a 200mhz pentium its not gonna be a superfast machine.

I don't think it's a matter of filesystems or disk space.

See: if you need the pentium to be just an internet connection to the other machine, you can try and not install too much stuff. Its another way to take profit on older machines. Discard graphical env., kde, and do a minimal install, with server software.
Regarding dhcp: as I see you are specially concerned on serving the connection, I must tell you there are other ways to accomplish that. Installing a dhcp server is nice, but if you have only one more machine you can assign static ip's.
There are tons of howto's around telling how to do this, it's not complicated.

The merits of Linux
 

But I thought won of the strongest points of linux is that it uses far less resources than windoz. All the books are saying Linux can install on 40 gig hdd and 8 mb ram....????

the abover post was edited, in the mean time. Did you see?

8 mb mem and 40GB machine? I don't think so, friend. The last 8 mb machines around were those 486DX, he he.... good old dos times...

Hey, you can install linux on old machines, but you have to choose the adequate software, see? with 8 mb you can't run a graphical env., for example.

Take a look at coyote linux, a nice example of what you can do with a 12MB 486:

http://www.coyotelinux.com/

Gateway router
 

So you mean I don't even need to set up a server to have the older pentium as a gateway to internet and serve to laptop???

OK I will try that tomorrow, but I have to go to bed now...!!!

Are u in Rio???

I have a cousine in Brazilia. Never been there. I love the music and women!!! Egberto Gizmonti is my favorite.!

Red Hat 9 installation ( still at it ! )
 

Hello, it seems for some reason Red Hat 9 wont install on my old desktop. Pentium 200 MMX, 95 mb ram, 6 gig HDD. After Disk druid keep getting something like "this OS is not designed for the resources on this machine"... An attempt to setup a network server.

I tried to minimal installation. I also tried a text based installation. No change.
I will have to plan a hardware upgrade at some stage when I have the cash.

For now I want to install Red Hat 9 on my laptop as a workstation. This is Pentium 3 650 MHZ, 256 ram, 20 gid HDD of which 5 gig allocated to red hat with an ext3 partition.

I already have Red Hat 9 for Dummies book, plus Sybex Michael Jang's Mastering Red Hat 9. None of these mention anything about creating differnt partitions for such as usr, var, tmp etc....

I have noticed each time I used disk druid automatic, it creates boot and root by default.

My question is do we need to worry about these partition on later version of linux? If yes, then why does disk duid not promt me.? There wont be any other users accessing my linux workstation. All I need is development tools, Networking and ability to use multi medial.

Do I still need to setup, var, usr, temp, home, usr local, . Can someone help me understand the purpose of these partitions. Sorry for asking the obvious.

Many thanks in advance.

Regards

My question is do we need to worry about these partition on later version of linux?

Not as much as it used to be, but... If you create only / and swap its ok.

********

If yes, then why does disk duid not promt me.?

Sometimes its hard to figure why the defaults are what they are. If you wanna go minimal, create only / and swap.

**********

There wont be any other users accessing my linux workstation. All I need is development tools, Networking and ability to use multi medial.

Install as much rpms you can right during the system install. Its the best choice.

********

The different partitions thing is particularly important in servers setup, for several reasons. In desktop use you can do only / and swap. However, creating a separate /home can be nice.