What is a reasonable example of partition sizes to create?
The PC has 2 x 250GB HDD. Intending to use for a Web server, game server and file server.

Also I installed suse10.3 about 4 months ago and..well...I've forgotten the root password. But the install went great and since I'm new it was good to have a look at what the KDE GUI had to offer...so I'm hooked (heh).

Can I just reinstall again from the DVD or do I have to wipe the HDD clean somehow?

Or maybe try the enterprise server edtion i've seen on the net.


Many thanks.

Reinstalling means that you're going to format .
This can be done in two ways reinstalling in places now occupied by opensuse and formatting every thing or
reinstalling without formatting for instance /home
If you do not format /home all you personal files are still there.
And if you like to keep it it is a good idea to make a backup first
You can find this way of installing in the expert or customize install , somewhere in this option is also a possibility
to write on HD you like
A other possiblity is to shrunk the now occupied space by opensuse and install in new free space

In case you were confused by that reply, it doesn't mean that you are forced to, but it does mean that you can if you want to.

With that much disk space, you really shouldn't have a problem, almost whatever you do.

If you have an idea of how much space these bits need (and if you don't, I certainly can't tell you...) add those to a reasonable, simple, set up.

Lets say you allow ~2G for swap (may be more than you need, but with that much disk space...) you could put everything else in a root partition (/) of 20 G. You'd probably be better having a separate /home partition of at least 5 G. You can argue for separate partitions of around 5G upwards for /usr, /var and the like, but that is optional and as a relative new user, you probably don't want the extra fiddling about.

Add on to those numbers, your web/server files and you'll still have masses of space spare.

I just didn't want to get caught out with undersized partitions, and the HDDs were cheap. OK so I've got ample disk space.

As for the reinstallation, if I stick with suse10.3 which seems fine, whats the difference in the server edtion? Does it just preload alot more tools and features for networking etc and updates?

I purchased a couple of books, "begining suse linux" & " suse linux toolbox", and they seem good reading. The first being rather basic at the start and the later one being alot of command line entry which I'll have to pickup on later as I go.

Many thanks.

By 10.3, I assume that you mean OpenSuSE 10.3; in addition to that (and its various editions - the Live CDs, the 32 and 64 bit versions, etc), there is also SLED and SLES.

SLES is SuSE Linux Enterprise Server; what you primarily get with any of the enterprise versions is more testing - test, test, test to assure stability. The corrolarly of that is that you get less up-to-date software, because of the less frequent releases, and because of the testing required.

You can also get enterprise-class support, and a longer support window, of course, and there may also be widgets that are useful in an enterprise setting - stuff for integration with an MS infrastructure and some paid-for bits which would be difficult to supply with a zero cost distribution, for example.

In general, distributions which work on this model tend to use the zero cost edition as a 'sand box' for trying out the more bleeding edge stuff before it makes its way into the enterprise editions.

As far as capability as a server is concerned, if you use the 'open' version the main issue is that you will probably have a bit of playing around with installing and de-installing software before you get a basic, solid, server configuration. Going for SLES, the default installation is rather more likely to give you an installation without excess gui stuff that could represent a security risk.

OK. All this info gives me a better idea of what to do.

I'll stick with openSuse10.3 at the moment and am prepared to do fine tuning of my own.

The partition sizes said in above post seem veru close to what the installer recommended so will stick with that. I know there alot of disk space but HDDs are cheap and not worth buying small capacity ones.

Many thanks all.