Partitioning scheme för Linux + winXP?
 

I'm not really a newbie, but I have a question and want to know what you gurus think:

I want a dual boot (Windows XP + gentoo linux). What is the best disk partitioning to use? I have 2 hard drives.
My thoughts:
- Should both OSs be on the same disk? Or should I have install one on each disk?
- As I have 1GB of RAM, is a swap partition really necessary? How large should it be?
- Should I use the windows bootloader or grub?
- I also want to use some kind of disc encryption (like truecrypt). Are those safe to use? Is truecrypt the one to use, or do you recommend some other encryption?

Also, I wonder if the nForce4 chipset and/or PCI-Express gfx-card will cause me troubles?? (haven't installed linux on this very computer before)

My computer:
Asus A8N-E nForce4 ultra
AMD64 3500+ (Venice) 2.2GHz
GeForce 6600GT 128MB PCI-Express
1024 MB DDR-RAM
160GB + 220GB Hard drive

Personally I don't consider myself a guru just yet. But here's my advice and this is what I did. Seems to work pretty well:

1) Install your Linux flavor on your second hard disk.
2) Use Grub. Very nice bootloader
3) I partitioned my Linux drive as follows:

/boot partition in (hd1,0)
One logical volume group (LVM (Logical Volume Management)) partitioned as follows (hd1,1):
/OS mounted on / ; root
/Users mounted on /home ; volume for users
/Swap swap partition ; swap volume
/Data mounted on /Data ; data volume (probably overkill, just use users)
/Backup mounted on /Backup ; used for temporary storage of system backup

The only thing I would probably change is to take the swap partition out of the LVM group and make it a single partition after /boot. In other words, make a swap partition at (hd1,1) and the volume group at (hd1,2). If you're not familiar with LVM the I would just make 3 partitions as such:

/boot partition in (hd1,0)
swap partition in (hd1,1)
/ partition in (hd1,2)

I using (hd1) here since I'm assuming you'll be installing Linux on the second hard disk, it would be (hd0) otherwise. BTW, I'm using Grub nomenclature for the disks here.

4) I would definitely install a swap partition and just make it twice your memory size (2Gb in your case). Hard disks are big today and this isn't a large sacrifice. Besides, power management like suspending to disk would probably like to have this partition.

I hope this helps and as always, your mileage may vary. Good luck. BTW, I'm running SUSE 10.0 and Windows XP with this setup on both my home systems and so far not bad.

Regards,

card-suse

I have a similar issue with this installastion. I am running SUSE linux 10.0 on an external drive, and windows XP pro on the internal drive. No matter how I configure the lilo or grub bootloader, windows simply will not boot.i have been using the linux dvd to boot the :Pengy: os but i would like to be able to boot windows from the hard drive, because i have a laptop and would enjoy the extended battery life.

I'm not sure why you are having this problem. For starters, when you installed SUSE 10.0 where did you put the /boot partition? Let's start there and see if we can figure out your problem. As a matter of fact, could you list how you partitioned your system. Please include the partitioning of your internal disk also so I can get an idea of how you laid out your system. Thanks.

swap size = 2 X main memory size.
it is an old concept when the size of main memory was not enough and moreover it was very costly.

But now this thumbrule doesn't lasts anymore for 1GB ram.
Buddy 1 GB is too much.
i've only 256 mb of RAM and hardly i saw my system using the swap. But still i'm keeping 300 mb of swap.
Believe me you will never see your swap being used if you are having 1GB of ram.

I know this topic always asks for hot discussion. But i'm pretty clear about my concept.

regards

Okay here goes:
I put the /boot into the usb external drive, had a 1gb partition because I have 512mb ram, but I suspect it modified my boot partition on the internal hd.
Heres the raw list:
HDA1/2:55/5gb windows partition/NTFS stuff(internal drive)
SDA1 1gb boot partition on a USB2 Hard drive(LILO Boot loader, does not work properly, currently booting from dvd)
SDA2 27gb Linux primary drive

Yeah, I agree with you, but I'm not sure if "swsusp" for suspending to disk needs this. I'm pretty sure this is where it dumps your main memory if you go into hibernate. I just wanted to make sure he had overkill because he probably has plenty of disk space and if he mounts in an LVM group he could always change it.