Whats the best way to partition a hard drive?
 

I dont know much about partition linux, but i know that you shouldn't lump everything together in the same partition, as you would do with windows. What directories should have dedicated partitions?

I've googled on this for hours, but to no avail. Sorry if this is a noob question.

Actually these days, and for a desktop system, it is quite OK to dump almost everything into just one partition. Of course if you're going to use swap, that is going to be a separate partition. Some people (and some installers) will also make a /boot partition at the beginning of their HD....
There are reasons for making separate partitons for /var (so you don't fill the whole disk with logs), or /home (so you can reinstall your system while preserving your /home), and so on, but on the whole I find it's more trouble than it's worth. These days I usually partition my disks very simply: /boot, /swap, and / for everything else. Works just fine.

Is that a wise idea if i am considering dual booting with windows XP and Gentoo? Sorry if my questions seem stupidly simple

Yea I agree with ferrix, having one big / is good enough for a desktop system.
Partitioning shouldn't affect anything as long as your bootloader is configured properly.

Well it doesn't really matter if you're double booting or not - Windows will sit in its own partition and how you distribute Linux over the remaining space is up to you. I'm just not sure whether getting into Gentoo at this point is a wise idea. Especially if you *really* don't want to lose your Windows system - I'd think twice about trying to double-boot with Gentoo if I were in your shoes :)

If I may interject something - have you looked at Installing Gentoo available from http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handboo...?part=1&chap=1 ?

There is a section (4.b. Designing a Partitioning Scheme) which will answer those questions specifically for your Gentoo install.

This document alone makes me what to try Gentoo. I would highly recommend that you print this document and use it while installing Gentoo. If you do, you'll undoubtedly have a wonderful install of Gentoo, and a good experience using that distro afterwards. This is the best install guide I've seen so far. I can't imagine why it's not highly acclaimed in these forums. Maybe it is, and I've not read those posts.

:cool:

Gentoo does have an excellent documentation. All the same, if at all possible I'd pick a system that isn't mission critical for that first attempt :)

Since we're free to offer our opinions here - drxsmurf, just back up your Windoze data and go for it! It's quite obviously not his first attempt if he lists Mandrake in his cp.

When I setup my workstations, I partition like this ->

/boot
swap
/
/home
/var
/usr
/tmp

Where they go and size depends upon your hard drive(s), how you intend to use your system, and security issues. With my *nix experience I've found it's as your sig says :cool:

Yeah I have tried Mandrake a couple of times, with pretty good luck. The only reason I want to try Gentoo is because of the great things i hear about it.

Thanks for the tip on the Gentoo Documentation...I've been reading through that guide now for a few hours. Gentoo looks like a very good distro, with some fresh ideas.

I have to admit, reading some of these replies makes me a little nervous. My current setup, however, gives me a little bit of breathing room. I've got two drives, one 120GB and one 40GB. The 40GB is where i have windows currently installed, which i plan on resizing -- ten GB to Linux, 30GB to windows. All of the things that i need to backup (document, multimedia content) are already backed up on the 120GB drive. So unless the Gentoo install can find a way to eat that harddrive, Im not too worried. (Should I be?)


Thanks for all of your help.

No, I don't think so :D

These other guys may be more experienced than I, but the only advice on this I could give is don't automount any of your Windoze drives. Especially not read/write.

I tried RedHat in 1999 and gave up after a couple of months. This year, in June, I tried it again. My Windoze data drive was automounted, and I don't remember all the details, such as how I set this up, or if the system basically did it, or what. However, one day I was trying to set something up in RH, and online, when I heard one of my drives churning away. I didn't know what was happening. It went on for about one minute, then slowly stopped. Well, about 2 days later I rebooted to do a newsletter in PageMaker under Windoze 2000. I clicked on my E:\Data drive and there were no files! Somehow, over 17GB of data had mysteriously disappeared. I don't know if some cracker did this, or if I somehow did it while running RH. No matter, I don't automount any drives anymore.

Shortly after this I went from RH to Debian, because RH was just too bloated, and the RPM system is very problematic. RH, to me, is M$ Jr.

You may read the Reviews section here in LQ. The one thing that I hear that's supposedly hard about Gentoo is package management. And most guys say Slackware is just as fast, and easier to use. I worked with Debian for about 5 months and finally tried Slackware. It's much easier to get things going in Slack, and I'm now a happy Slacker :D

That's my :twocents:

:cool:

Gentoo is a lot of fun and teaches a lot. The documentation is stellar!

My opinion on the partitioning scheme is this: At least create a seperate /home partition. This is where all your personal desktop and applications settings go, as well as documents you create etc. It makes it tons easier if you ever need to re-install. After you finish a re-install, basically everything looks and acts as it did before, other than the system settings which go in /etc. /etc is a good directory to keep tight backups on. I've read you can't put /etc on it's own partition because the system needs to access it before it would actually get mounted.

I think its better to have one partition..I dont even have the boot partition.I have got win98 on one partition..for stuff like games kazaa..which I badly miss in Linux....and some backup..so..its always better to have some space ie 2/3rd's of your HardDrive..if not less to windoze and the remaining to Linux.I like Slackware to the utmost extend.but still is not in a position to get free of windoze..reasons might be immaterial...Hope this helps!

What exactly does automount mean? I know that i should have Windows installed first (which i do). Then would it be alright to put Gentoo on the same drive? I mean, would lilo or something screwup my MBR? I've never dual booted and Im not sure how to do it. I don't mind reinstalling windows, but EVERYTHING on the second drive must remain intact, as it is around 50GB worth of music, video, and software.

Automount means that a partition is mounted automatically when you boot the system. When you read the Gentoo information it will tell you about this somewhere, I'm sure. Since your data on the second drive (/dev/hdb) is critical, be certain that it's not automounted. If you don't know before the install, just check the file /etc/fstab after you install and it will tell you if and how it's mounted.

As for LILO in the MBR, if you follow the instructions you won't have a problem. LILO is very efficient, and it will not mess up your Windoze boot. It will just add a file to your MBR (master boot record) that will allow you to choose between your different OSes when you boot. This method of booting is preferable to a floppy boot, which takes a coon's age!

Since you say "EVERYTHING on the second drive must remain intact," don't put anything you install on /dev/hdb and you'll be okay.

NB: The master drive on the primary IDE controller is /dev/hda and the slave drive on the primary IDE controller is /dev/hdb. The master drive on the secondary IDE controller is /dev/hdc and the slave drive on the secondary IDE controller is /dev/hdd.

:cool:

can i suggest a separate partition for /home, that way if you have to reinstall Linux you can preserve data there....

Gentoo documentation is by far the best I've encountered.

Also, if you plan on putting winxp on the same hard drive, might I recommend making sure winxp is on the first partition.

Btw, does anyone know if I were to get a second hd and put winxp on it, i.e. it would be /dev/hdb, could I set up GRUB to boot it even though it will be /dev/hdb instead of /dev/hda?