Advice on Partitioning Scheme?
 

Hello everyone. First off, I guess I'll let you know about my limited Linux experience. This will be my fourth attempt at installing a Linux-based operating system, and hopefully it will be my first successful one. My prior attempts (Slackware 9.1, and Gentoo the other two times, respectively) all failed horribly, however I came closer with each attempt. I still very much consider myself a newbie, but want to learn about and install Linux for educational purposes. I'm mainly a Windows jockey (please don't regale me about how much Microsoft sucks. Trust me, I know, and thank you) and all of my years of computer experience directly relates to that style of operating system.

Now, about the system I'm attempting this installtion on. It's not my regular system; I'd only try placing it onto my regular computer when I've successfully installed Slack two or three times, and even then it will have to be dual-bootable with my Windows XP Pro. My "Linux box" will be a Pentium 200 MMX with 64MB of RAM and a 4GB hard drive, scrounged up from my best spare parts available.

My question is on how exactly to partition my drives to. I use 'cfdisk' because of it's easy to follow interface.

Part of my confusion comes from my Gentoo experience. When installing Gentoo I made three partitions: boot, root and swap (don't know if those are the correct names/terms to use, sorry if they're wrong). However, using the Install Help section on Slackware.com, it doesn't mention a boot partition at all. Infact, I find the guide on Slackware.com very vague, which is why I decided to ask here.

Using my Gentoo experience, I figured this is how I should set up my hard drive:

/dev/hda1
boot
8MB

/dev/hda2
swap
128MB

/dev/hda3
root
(rest of 4GB drive)

Now I have a feeling I'm missing or fudging up something, so please educate and guide me. I ofcourse don't want to mess up my partitioning and not realize it until I've partially installed Slack.

Thank you.

you will find the best installation howto i have ever seen here . it's written for slack 9.1, but is just the same for 10. he goes into great detail about his partitioning using screenshots too.


hope this helps.

i might also add that shilo's "this is how i do it all" thread that is stickied at the top of this forum is quite good as well and will get you going.

Sorry, but the link to the other forum doesn't seem to work. And as incredible as it sounds, I looked for the partitioning scheme on the other forum thread you mentioned. I think I found it, but I didn't quite understand it. For instance, which partition(s) are bootable? How big should the boot partition be?

the suggestion about shilo's thread is more about configgering your system once you have slack installed. not sure why that link wouldn't work for you, it seems to be working for me. it is the same link that is in shilo's thread at the end of the "install slackware" section of the first post. see if you can get to it from there.

edit for spelling

That link to Bitbenderforums still doesn't seem to want to work for me.

Weird.

So, can anyone just tell me what I need to know...? I can make the partitions, just I don't know what to make them (size, bootable, etc).

well, all you would really NEED is a root partition and a swap partition (though even the swap is optional, STRONGLY recommended, but optional). i usually do the following (though i have larger disks usually than 4GB you're working with).

500 MB for swap
1 GB for /
7 GB for /usr
2 GB for /opt
9.5 GB for /home

this obviously is for a 20 GB disk. the reason that i like to make different partitions is for "worst case scenerios" and upgrades. for example, having /home on a separate partition means that when you upgrade (or even go to a different distro *gasp*) you will have all your personal files still there, just don't format it when you reinstall. reassign it to /home and your stuff is still there. /usr is usually used for user installed programs, which is where i put all apps that i add. usually in /usr/local. the /opt partition is used for optional apps. for example, kde is installed in /opt/kde by default.

you will most likely find many opinions about partitioning strategy. one argument against my modularized approach is that if i made one of them too big, then i am simply wasting that space, whereas if i just had one big root partition, i would never have this problem. in the end, i guess it just comes down to your choice.

hope this helps.

Yes, this does help although it still leaves me with a few questions...

Is / just like the main partition, like C: is to a Microsoft-based OS? Also, I think I get usr and home, but what does opt stand for? And which ones have to be made bootable (aside from swap, ofcourse)?

not sure if you will be able to follow this link, but here is an overview of the linux filesystem hierarchy standard. if you can't follow that link, just do a google search for fhs. and / is your root partition and is very similar to C:\ in windows.

hope this helps.

for reference, here is the entire fhs.

after reading around a bit on partitioning strategies for tight disk space, it seems to be a popular opinion to just make root and swap partitions. in your example you would do something like:

300 MB for swap
3.7 GB for /

the modularized approach that i use would simply waste too much space on that system where it is already tight.

Thank you very much. I'm going to try that. :)

Also, should I format the partitions after I've created them, and if so, could someone refresh me on the format command and allocation types that could/should be used?

EDIT - Nevermind. Formatting is done through setup. :)