Partition help

[Leo Donahue]

I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop.

My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows.

I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive.  Currently win2k
only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, there is another primary partition that
is unformatted.

I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the Anaconda wizard tries to
partion the remaining portion of my hard drive for me.  I get an error that says something
about not being a primary partition or something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup the
partitions like the Book I'm using suggests.

I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux".

The text suggests the following for partions:

/boot    100 megabytes
/        500 megabytes
(swap)   two times the amount of ram
/home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
/tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
/usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
/var     Minimum 500 Megabytes

Well you've probably already guessed that the / account is too small, I get an
uncaught exception error that says I should have had 2515MB of space for the root
partition.  There are three choices, if I remember correctly and I chose "OK",
which froze the laptop and I hard to do a hard boot to restart the laptop.  

I am only installing the default packages to learn what is there before I do a custom
install.

Can someone recommend a better partion schema for an approximate 10 GB hard drive?

I would appreciate the list's help.

Thanks.

[jim lawrence]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 19:42:28 -0700, Leo Donahue <elmoses(a)cox.net&gt; wrote:
>   
>   
>  I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop. 
>    
>  My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows. 
>    
>  I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive. 
>  Currently win2k only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, there is
>  another primary partition that is unformatted. 
>    
>  I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the Anaconda
>  wizard tries to partion the remaining portion of my hard drive for me.  I
>  get an error that says something about not being a primary partition or
>  something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup the partitions like the Book I'm
>  using suggests. 
>    
>  I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux". 
>    
>  The text suggests the following for partions: 
>    
>  /boot    100 megabytes 
>  /        500 megabytes 
>  (swap)   two times the amount of ram 
>  /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users 
>  /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes 
>  /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install 
>  /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes 
>    
>  Well you've probably already guessed that the / account is too small, I get
>  an uncaught exception error that says I should have had 2515MB of space for
>  the root partition.  There are three choices, if I remember correctly and I
>  chose "OK", which froze the laptop and I hard to do a hard boot to restart
>  the laptop.   
>    
>  I am only installing the default packages to learn what is there before I do
>  a custom install. 
>    
>  Can someone recommend a better partion schema for an approximate 10 GB hard
>  drive? 
>    
>  I would appreciate the list's help. 
>    
>  Thanks. 
>  --
>  fedora-list mailing list
>  fedora-list(a)redhat.com
>  To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>  
>   
it might be the primary partition causing the error
see my disc info attachment  from my notebook 
create 3 partitions  
/boot  100 mb
/swap  2000mb
/ root  the rest of the drive

-- 

********************************************************
When I'm feeling down, I like to whistle. 
It makes the neighbor's dog run to the end of his chain and gag himself.
************************************
Registered Linux User: #376813

jim lawrence
128-10-93-85-10-128-98-112-6-6-25-126-39-1-68-78

[thomas cameron]

OK, let's examine the logic behind the partition scheme Sobell lays out:

/boot    100 megabytes
/        500 megabytes
(swap)   two times the amount of ram
/home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
/tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
/usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
/var     Minimum 500 Megabytes

/boot is where the kernel and some associated files live.  Because of PC 
BIOS limitations, the kernel *must* be within the first 1024 cylinders on 
the disk, so you should make that the first partition.

The old "make your swap twice your physical memory" thing is really just a 
suggestion - it's not set in stone.  On a laptop system with 512MB memory, I 
would be pretty surprised if you overflowed that RAM and needed a whole 
bunch of swap.  I would probably make my swap partition smaller - more like 
256-512MB.

Now normally /var is a separate partition because that's where everything 
writes log files.  If you get some weird out of controll process that starts 
writing tons of logfile entries, you want to have /var on a separate 
partition so that the OS partition doesn't fill up the system crashes.

/tmp is also used by all sorts of processes, so it is also potentially at 
risk of filling up.  Making it it's own partition isn't a bad idea.

/home is where your personal stuff will go, and it's good to have /home as a 
separate partition so that if you need to reinstall Linux you can just leave 
/home alone and it will be there when the new OS is installed.

/usr is where all the core OS stuff goes.

I wouldn't usually contradict Mark Sobell, but since you are just setting up 
a small system for educational purposes, I would do this:

/boot (200MB)
swap (512MB)
/ (the whole rest of the drive)

And here's why:  Yes, there is some small danger of logfiles or runaway 
processes filling up your root partition, but in the 10 years I've been 
running Linux I've only seen that on servers, never on a laptop.  If you do 
this then you can use all of the remaining part of your hard drive.  You'll 
never run into the situation where /home has tons of free space but you 
guessed wrong and /usr is full and you can't install new software.  In my 
opinion (which is only worth what you've paid for it), the risks are far 
outweighed by the benefit of not having to take guesses at what your disk 
usage will be.

Cheers,
Thomas

[Scot L. Harris]

On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 22:25, Thomas Cameron wrote:
>  OK, let's examine the logic behind the partition scheme Sobell
> lays out:
>  
>  /boot    100 megabytes
>  /        500 megabytes
>  (swap)   two times the amount of ram
>  /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
>  /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
>  /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
>  /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes 
>  
>  I wouldn't usually contradict Mark Sobell, but since you are just setting up 
>  a small system for educational purposes, I would do this:
>  
>  /boot (200MB)
>  swap (512MB)
>  / (the whole rest of the drive)
>  
>  And here's why:  Yes, there is some small danger of logfiles or runaway 
>  processes filling up your root partition, but in the 10 years I've been 
>  running Linux I've only seen that on servers, never on a laptop.  If you do 
>  this then you can use all of the remaining part of your hard drive.  You'll 
>  never run into the situation where /home has tons of free space but you 
>  guessed wrong and /usr is full and you can't install new software.  In my 
>  opinion (which is only worth what you've paid for it), the risks are far 
>  outweighed by the benefit of not having to take guesses at what your disk 
>  usage will be. 
For personal laptops and desktop systems I concur!  If you are setting
up a server that will have multiple users breaking up things into
physical file systems has merit, but for personal single user use the
setup you outline above is what I have been using for many years with no
problems.  

I have in the distant past run into the problem of having to expand a
critical file system because the services the machine provide out grew
the original partition plan.  It is not fun to do.  Believe me.


-- 
Scot L. Harris
webid(a)cfl.rr.com

Justice, n.:
	A decision in your favor.

[Robert L Cochran]

Thomas Cameron wrote:

>  /boot is where the kernel and some associated files live.  Because of
>
>  PC BIOS limitations, the kernel *must* be within the first 1024 
>  cylinders on the disk, so you should make that the first partition. 
I don't think the 1024 cylinder limitation applies any longer.

Thanks

Bob Cochran

[Jonathan Berry]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005 21:25:03 -0600, Thomas Cameron
<thomas.cameron(a)camerontech.com&gt; wrote:
[snip]
>  /boot is where the kernel and some associated files live.  Because of
> PC
>  BIOS limitations, the kernel *must* be within the first 1024 cylinders on
>  the disk, so you should make that the first partition. 
Actually, I don't think this is a problem anymore; it used to be, but
I think most BIOSes are fine now and GRUB may even be able to work
around that where there is a BIOS limitation.  With the first 10 GB of
his disk being Windows already, there will be no way for him to have
the kernel be in the first 1024 cylinders.  Anyway, that's not a
problem.

>  The old "make your swap twice your physical memory" thing
> is really just a
>  suggestion - it's not set in stone.  On a laptop system with 512MB memory, I
>  would be pretty surprised if you overflowed that RAM and needed a whole
>  bunch of swap.  I would probably make my swap partition smaller - more like
>  256-512MB. 
I like to have 1 GB, just to have a nice big space that I know has no
chance of filling up.  If you are tight on space, then 512 MB is
probably fine.

[snip]
>  /home is where your personal stuff will go, and it's good to have
> /home as a
>  separate partition so that if you need to reinstall Linux you can just leave
>  /home alone and it will be there when the new OS is installed. 
This is a must.  It makes upgrades and reinstalls much less painful. 
You will always be able to keep you data no matter what you do to the
rest of the system.

>  /usr is where all the core OS stuff goes.
>  
>  I wouldn't usually contradict Mark Sobell, but since you are just setting up
>  a small system for educational purposes, I would do this:
>  
>  /boot (200MB)
>  swap (512MB)
>  / (the whole rest of the drive) 
This is good, but I'd add about 1-2 GB /home parition, and maybe
shrink /boot to 100 MB or just include it in /. There is no reason
(that I can think of) to have 200 MB worth of kernels laying around,
unless maybe you are testing several configs.  On one machine with 4
kernels installed presently, I'm using 18 MB of space on /boot.
1-2 GB on /home leaves you about 5-7 GB on / (I figure your "20 GB"
drive is probably more like 17-18 GB, leaving 7-8 GB for Linux), which
should be good for a decent size install.
I recently setup and old machine for a web server with a 10 GB disk. 
I decided to try out LVM and created has the seperated partitions
because it is a server.  It's about full by today's standards, but I
have a 1.5 GB /http that is barely used (so far) and I also left some
unallocated space in case I wanted/needed to grow an LVM.  So it is
possible : ).

[snip]
>  Cheers,
>  Thomas 
Different people have different tastes, but I'd say go with a small
number of partitions and you will be fine.  If you split it up into
too many partitions, chances are you will end up with too much in one
place and too little in another.
Have fun learning Linux.

Jonathan

[Michael A. Peters]

On 01/30/2005 07:25:03 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:

>  I wouldn't usually contradict Mark Sobell, but since you are just
>  
>  setting up a small system for educational purposes, I would do this:
>  
>  /boot (200MB)
>  swap (512MB)
>  / (the whole rest of the drive) 
/boot doesn't need to be 200MB.
It can hold a LOT of kernels/initrd images before 100MB is not enough.

[mpeters@devel ~]$ df -m |grep boot
/dev/hda1                   97        22        71  24% /boot
[mpeters@devel ~]$

That's with six different kernels and their related stuff in there, as  
well as memtest86. 22MB used, 71 free.

I personally would add a /home in addition to above - so that I can do  
fresh installs wiping everything in / without losing my /home data.

[thomas cameron]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael A. Peters" <mpeters(a)mac.com&gt;
To: <fedora-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 3:12 AM
Subject: Re: Partition help


>  On 01/30/2005 07:25:03 PM, Thomas Cameron wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't usually contradict Mark Sobell, but since you are just 
> > setting up a small system for educational purposes, I would do this:
> >
> > /boot (200MB)
> > swap (512MB)
> > / (the whole rest of the drive)
>
>  /boot doesn't need to be 200MB.
>  It can hold a LOT of kernels/initrd images before 100MB is not enough. 
Probably so.  I've always gone big b/c I *do* usually have a bunch of 
kernels there.

>  [mpeters@devel ~]$ df -m |grep boot
>  /dev/hda1                   97        22        71  24% /boot
>  [mpeters@devel ~]$
>
>  That's with six different kernels and their related stuff in there, as 
>  well as memtest86. 22MB used, 71 free.
>
>  I personally would add a /home in addition to above - so that I can do 
>  fresh installs wiping everything in / without losing my /home data. 
Sure, that's not a problem.  I personally never keep anything critical on my 
laptop drive permanently (rsync it with my desktop).  So for me, having 
/home separate is not a big deal.  You make very valid points though.

Thomas

[James McKenzie]

Leo Donahue wrote:
>  I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop.
>  
>  My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows.
>  
>  I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive.  Currently win2k
> only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, there is another primary partition that
> is unformatted.
>  
>  I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the Anaconda wizard tries
> to partion the remaining portion of my hard drive for me.  I get an error that says
> something about not being a primary partition or something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup
> the partitions like the Book I'm using suggests.
>  
>  I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux".
>  
>  The text suggests the following for partions:
>  
>  /boot    100 megabytes
>  /        500 megabytes 
I have a / (also referred to as root) partition of about 1.5
GB which 
holds everything except /tmp, /opt, /tmp, /usr and /var.  You should be 
able to get away with only 1 GB of space here.
>  (swap)   two times the amount of ram 
You are running a laptop,
.%5 GB will do just fine.
>  /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users 
You
plan on having a large number of users?  If only one or two, roll 
this into your / directory
>  /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes 
I'm running 2 GB with only
3% used.  I would recommend keeping this at 
100MB
>  /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install 
This is
where most of your system will live.  Make this about 4 GB if 
you plan on installing a 'typical' workstation installation.
>  /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes 
I made this 2 GB again.  I
recommend making this 1.5 GB.

Adjust these as necessary to set up your 10GB partition.

Again, /boot MUST be within the first 1024 cylinders, or your system 
will NOT boot to LINUX.  All of the other files can be anywhere on your 
system.

Good luck installing LINUX.

-- 
James McKenzie

[Jeff Vian]

On Sun, 2005-01-30 at 21:17 -0700, James McKenzie wrote:
>  Leo Donahue wrote:
>  > I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop.
>  > 
>  > My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows.
>  > 
>  > I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive.  Currently
> win2k only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, there is another primary
> partition that is unformatted.
>  > 
>  > I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the Anaconda wizard
> tries to partion the remaining portion of my hard drive for me.  I get an error that says
> something about not being a primary partition or something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup
> the partitions like the Book I'm using suggests.
>  > 
>  > I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux".
>  > 
>  > The text suggests the following for partions:
>  > 
>  > /boot    100 megabytes
>  > /        500 megabytes
>  I have a / (also referred to as root) partition of about 1.5 GB which 
>  holds everything except /tmp, /opt, /tmp, /usr and /var.  You should be 
>  able to get away with only 1 GB of space here.
>  > (swap)   two times the amount of ram
>  You are running a laptop, .%5 GB will do just fine.
>  > /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
>  You plan on having a large number of users?  If only one or two, roll 
>  this into your / directory
>  > /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
>  I'm running 2 GB with only 3% used.  I would recommend keeping this at 
>  100MB 
I mostly agree with what you said, but /tmp is not the place to skimp
this much.  Whenever you burn CDs/copy CDs, or do lots of other stuff
the temporary scratch space is /tmp.

I would recommend 1gb or as others have suggested, for a laptop with
likely only one user and only a 10gb drive use 3 partitions.  /boot,
swap, and / and it should work well.

In fact, that is the configuration on mine and has been for over a year.
 

>  > /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
>  This is where most of your system will live.  Make this about 4 GB if 
>  you plan on installing a 'typical' workstation installation.
>  > /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes
>  I made this 2 GB again.  I recommend making this 1.5 GB.
>  
>  Adjust these as necessary to set up your 10GB partition.
>  
>  Again, /boot MUST be within the first 1024 cylinders, or your system 
>  will NOT boot to LINUX.  All of the other files can be anywhere on your 
>  system.
>  
>  Good luck installing LINUX.
>  
>  -- 
>  James McKenzie
>

[Robert L Cochran]

Leo Donahue wrote:

>  I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop.
>   
>  My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows.
>   
>  I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive.  
>  Currently win2k only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, 
>  there is another primary partition that is unformatted.
>   
>  I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the 
>  Anaconda wizard tries to partion the remaining portion of my hard 
>  drive for me.  I get an error that says something about not being a 
>  primary partition or something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup the 
>  partitions like the Book I'm using suggests.
>   
>  I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux".
>   
>  The text suggests the following for partions:
>   
>  /boot    100 megabytes
>  /        500 megabytes
>  (swap)   two times the amount of ram
>  /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
>  /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
>  /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
>  /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes
>   
>  Well you've probably already guessed that the / account is too small, 
>  I get an uncaught exception error that says I should have had 2515MB 
>  of space for the root partition.  There are three choices, if I 
>  remember correctly and I chose "OK", which froze the laptop and I hard 
>  to do a hard boot to restart the laptop.  
>   
>  I am only installing the default packages to learn what is there 
>  before I do a custom install.
>   
>  Can someone recommend a better partion schema for an approximate 10 GB 
>  hard drive?
>   
>  I would appreciate the list's help.
>   
>  Thanks. 
The only item I have an involved partitioning scheme set up for is one 
of my web servers. And that was really unnecessary, I think I just did 
it as a play thing.

Here is what I reccomend to you:

1. Make sure your laptop has the most recent BIOS on it.
2. Put in the install CD, and let the installer program (anaconda) 
decide on all the partitioning for you. Just be sure you point it at the 
free space you have.
3. Finish the rest of the install.

You are probably more interested in working with OpenOffice and all the 
other things Linux is about than in calculating partition sizes. Let 
Disk Druid do that.

10 Gb is a decent amount of space and like the other posters have said, 
it should work well for you. My own laptop only has a 6 Gb hard drive, 
and at the moment it is down to 491 Mb of free space, so I'm looking 
around for a new hard drive for it. It has taken several years for me to 
get to the space squeeze I have now.

Bob Cochran

[Terry Polzin]

On Sunday 30 January 2005 21:42, Leo Donahue wrote:
>  I need help installing Fedora Core 3 on my laptop.
>
>  My goal is to learn Linux enough to stop using windows.
>
>  I have win2k on my laptop.  PIII ~900MHz. 512MB ram. 20GB hard drive. 
>  Currently win2k only has 10001MB of my hard drive.  Under windows, there is
>  another primary partition that is unformatted.
>  
Delete it. (the other primary unformatted partition that is)
You want to make your own boot, swap and root partitions in its place in 
unpartitioned space.



>  I inserted the FC3 cd and rebooted.  I got to the point where the
> Anaconda
>  wizard tries to partion the remaining portion of my hard drive for me.  I
>  get an error that says something about not being a primary partition or
>  something.  So I use Disk Druid to setup the partitions like the Book I'm
>  using suggests.
>
>  I'm reading the text by Sobell, "Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux".
>
>  The text suggests the following for partions:
>
>  /boot    100 megabytes
>  /        500 megabytes
>  (swap)   two times the amount of ram
>  /home    As large as necessary, depends upon # of users
>  /tmp     Minimum 100 megabytes
>  /usr     Minimum 1.7 - 5.5 GB depending what I install
>  /var     Minimum 500 Megabytes
>
>  Well you've probably already guessed that the / account is too small, I get
>  an uncaught exception error that says I should have had 2515MB of space for
>  the root partition.  There are three choices, if I remember correctly and I
>  chose "OK", which froze the laptop and I hard to do a hard boot to restart
>  the laptop.
>
>  I am only installing the default packages to learn what is there before I
>  do a custom install.
>
>  Can someone recommend a better partion schema for an approximate 10 GB hard
>  drive?
>
>  I would appreciate the list's help.
>
>  Thanks.