I moved this over here since it probably fits better heh.

Hi LinuxQuestions.org !!

Well now that I'm installed and everything is going smooth, I've decided on a couple of things and wanted to get some opinion on the direction that I'm deciding to take my machine.

Right now I have the following when I execute a df command.

I see the following

Filestystem 1k Blocks Used Available Mounted On

/dev/sda5 418582916 2337468 394982620 /
/dev/sda3 101107 14992 80894 /boot
none 1031976 0 1031076 /dev/shm


What I'd like to do if possible is change it to a different set up so instead of having all 418 gb be on one filesystem. Break it up into different sectors for different stuff. Such as

/temp = 100 gb
/data1 = 75 gb
/data2 = 75 gb
/home = 50 gb
/backup = 100 gb

The computer itself has 4 x 146 gb hard drives but RH was preloaded when the machine came from Dell. I'd really want to be able to set it up so I can have room for backups and space it out better. If anyone can give me some advice on the best structuring or some examples of maybe what you would do, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Now the strucutre you see above, may not be the best format or layout. I'm open to hearing some other possible layouts but the main area I'm interested in is learning how to change the one huge block of space (the 4 drives), into more consolidated filesystems.

Second question I had was, I currently have a box that uses Grub to Dual Boot Windows XP and RH9. I've considered using partition magic again to increase the amount of space I partioned for Linux and reducing the amount I had for XP. Since I'm using RH more and more and XP less and less. Would this be safe to do using Partiion Magic. It seems like it would be but just because it sounds simple doesnt mean it would resolve simple. If anyone has any opinoins on this too , I'm all ears.

Thank you in advance for any advice or suggestiosn.

TPupAZ

Well, I think the best way to repartition (and with those harddrives, I suggest this) is to reformat linux and start over from scratch.

You can leave your Windows partitions in place.

Yes, splitting up into multiple partitions is VERY smart. Here's my suggestion:

/home - give it its own drive. You will use this for storing settings, and all 'personal' data, like Video,music,documents, etc.

/ - Give it its own drive. This is where most of the file system is.

SWAP partition, stick this as the FIRST partition on one of your drives,but not where "/" is. Making it first makes the system much faster (10-15%). Make this like 500-700MB.

Now, you can devote a drive to the 'little' things, like:

a /tmp partition, maybe 1GB (often CD burning is stored here, and that can be 700MB in one go).

/var if you want to. This stores logs and spools, not too much here, not a big deal unless you run a server.

NOW:

Then devote whatevers left to "backup".
Alternatively, you can store all this in HOME, so you only have to backup one folder.


I also suggest making maybe a 3-5GB FAT32 partition, since you can use this to share between WINDOWS and LINUX.


Also, you can leave a drive empty if you wont be using it for a while, and store partition IMAGES on it, which is the best form of backup.

Lastly, as a file system, I recommend REISERFS. Its faster, more space efficient, and more stable (In my opinion).

But as the minimum, use EXT3 (not ext2), you want file journaling.

The computer isnt running windows. The 2nd computer I was talking about in question #2 is different from the the computer in my frist question. So leaving the windows partition isnt really an option. Since this computer came configured from Dell, I'm afraid to reformat because god know what they did in setting it up. I'm sorta left to having to fix what they sent.

I just dont like having that one monster filesystem heh.

Dont worry, they didn't mod anything. They use the stock Redhat.

You could even install a more up to date distro if you wanted to, like FEDORA (the new Redhat Linux).

Since Windows isn't an issue, just ignore the FAT32 part.

Have fun, that system sounds like a lot of fun.

Too bad its not mine, its my bosses.

I guess once I get the dual monitor set up , and fix XF86Config, I'll probably save a copy of that for after I format if I go that route.

Its sounding like I'll have no choice but to format if I want to repartition, I was hoping to find an alternative.

I'm just not sure why its recognizing all 4 hard drives as one gigantic filesystem. I was hoping it would have at least been

/dev/hd1
/dev/hd2
/dev/hd3
/dev/hd4

etc then i could work with those i guess, but guess not

Actually, it would be something like this:

/dev/hda
/dev/hdb
/dev/hdc
etc

But if its seeing it all as one big file system, it's probably RAID,set to striping. That makes the drives act as one big one.

See I'm not all that RAID knowledgeable to begin with, but I have done some reading on it from google.

I know it is RAID cause I see it load up in BIOS when the computer is booting up. So that brings up the question, does this affect how I make the filesystems off that one big drive. What does it impact now and what does it affect in terms of what I want to do.