Creating partitions

[Miguel Cardenas]

Hello

I've installed Fedora 15 to try the distro, it was a bit difficult at first
(I have used Slackware for the last 8 years) but I'm beginning to become
familiar with Fedora usage, although I have a few doubts about the
partitions.

For years I used to create 2 primary partitions, SWAP and EXT3, but now I
found that Fedora requires a different layout with more partitions like
other *nix operating systems that distribute the space in more areas for
home, root, usr, etc.

I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora installation
guide found that there are only 3 partitions required, SWAP, BOOT (ext3) and
ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
partition but let's do it in the Fedora way... so, I want to know if this
layout may work for me... I want to ask before doing it to save hours of
installation just to try and see the results...

#1 PRIMARY type 0c (Win95 Fat32 LBA)
#2 EXTENDED
     A - SWAP type 82
     B - BOOT /boot type 83 (linux ext3)
     C - ROOT / type 83 (linux ext3)

And one additional doubt... Fedora worked fine on this laptop but just
bought a new one, it comes with Windows7 preinstalled and want to keep the
original system backed up... Do you think it is safe to use Clonezilla for
any modern hard disk? My doubt is because I have a relatively old IDE disk
(80Gb) that after restoring a Clonezilla backup it does not boot anymore, I
guess it is due a possible different geometry interpretation by my installed
linux and the Clonezilla bootable linux, since the disk is ok and works
always perfect...

So, do you think it would be a good idea to backup Win7 on a SATA 500Gb
disk, no datafiles yet, just the operating system, I want to keep it for the
license...

And, after the backup, during the Fedora installation, it asks how to use
the hard disk, there is an option to shrink a used partition, but would it
work with Win7? As far as I know a NTFS partition can not be shrinked... is
it possible? can you comment something about this?

Thanks for your help!


-- 
Miguel Cardenas

[Miguel Cardenas]

On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Reindl Harald <h.reindl(a)thelounge.net&gt;wrote:

>  > I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora
> installation
>  > guide found that there are only 3 partitions required, SWAP, BOOT (ext3)
>  > and ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
>  this is simply not true
>  since F14 for sure ext4 is default, F13 i neve installed from scratch
>  /dev/md1      ext4     29G  8,0G   21G  28% /
>  /dev/md0      ext4    485M   51M  430M  11% /boot
>  /dev/md2      ext4    3,6T  1,2T  2,4T  34% /mnt/data
>  
I forgot to say it was another distro, now am moving to Fedora but always in
the past I've used swap and root only... of course Fedora uses ext4 :P

Take care

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 09:57 -0500, Miguel Cardenas wrote:
>  Hello
>  
>  I've installed Fedora 15 to try the distro, it was a bit difficult at
>  first (I have used Slackware for the last 8 years) but I'm beginning
>  to become familiar with Fedora usage, although I have a few doubts
>  about the partitions.
>  
>  For years I used to create 2 primary partitions, SWAP and EXT3, but
>  now I found that Fedora requires a different layout with more
>  partitions like other *nix operating systems that distribute the space
>  in more areas for home, root, usr, etc.
>  
>  I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora
>  installation guide found that there are only 3 partitions required,
>  SWAP, BOOT (ext3) and ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of
>  an independent boot partition but let's do it in the Fedora way... so,
>  I want to know if this layout may work for me... I want to ask before
>  doing it to save hours of installation just to try and see the
>  results...
>  
>  #1 PRIMARY type 0c (Win95 Fat32 LBA)
>  #2 EXTENDED
>       A - SWAP type 82
>       B - BOOT /boot type 83 (linux ext3)
>       C - ROOT / type 83 (linux ext3)
>  
>  And one additional doubt... Fedora worked fine on this laptop but just
>  bought a new one, it comes with Windows7 preinstalled and want to keep
>  the original system backed up... Do you think it is safe to use
>  Clonezilla for any modern hard disk? My doubt is because I have a
>  relatively old IDE disk (80Gb) that after restoring a Clonezilla
>  backup it does not boot anymore, I guess it is due a possible
>  different geometry interpretation by my installed linux and the
>  Clonezilla bootable linux, since the disk is ok and works always
>  perfect...
>  
>  So, do you think it would be a good idea to backup Win7 on a SATA
>  500Gb disk, no datafiles yet, just the operating system, I want to
>  keep it for the license...
>  
>  And, after the backup, during the Fedora installation, it asks how to
>  use the hard disk, there is an option to shrink a used partition, but
>  would it work with Win7? As far as I know a NTFS partition can not be
>  shrinked... is it possible? can you comment something about this?
>  
>  Thanks for your help!
>  
>  
>  -- 
>  Miguel Cardenas 
You can customize your partitions using the Custom option in the
installation sequence. It is all easier if you install the Windows first
in the first partition.
-- 
=======================================================================
The end of labor is to gain leisure.
=======================================================================
Aaron Konstam telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Joe Zeff]

On 10/23/2011 12:15 PM, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
>  I have found for ext3 that if the contents of /boot was modified
>  in any way, it can affect whether or not the bootloader could
>  boot off of /boot partition.  My advice is to use /boot for ext3&  ext4. 
Thank you, that's nice to know.  I stay out of /boot at all times unless 
I have no choice, such in tweaking the timeout in grub.conf, and I've 
never had the slightest trouble with it.  I do have a separate /boot 
partition on my laptop, but / there is ext4.

[Dan Thurman]

On 10/23/2011 11:22 AM, Joe Zeff wrote:
>  On 10/23/2011 07:57 AM, Miguel Cardenas wrote:
> > I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora installation
> > guide found that there are only 3 partitions required, SWAP, BOOT (ext3)
> > and ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
> > partition but let's do it in the Fedora way... so, I want to know if
> > this layout may work for me... I want to ask before doing it to save
> > hours of installation just to try and see the results...
>  You only need a /boot partition if root is ext4, because legacy grub 
>  doesn't grok it.  If you only use ext3, you can get away with two 
>  partitions: / and swap.  (I have a separate /home, but no /boot.) 
I have found for
ext3 that if the contents of /boot was modified
in any way, it can affect whether or not the bootloader could
boot off of /boot partition.  My advice is to use /boot for ext3 & ext4.

[Reindl Harald]

Am 23.10.2011 20:22, schrieb Joe Zeff:

On 10/23/2011 07:57 AM, Miguel Cardenas wrote:

>  I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora
> installation
>  guide found that there are only 3 partitions required, SWAP, BOOT (ext3)
>  and ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
>  partition but let's do it in the Fedora way... so, I want to know if
>  this layout may work for me... I want to ask before doing it to save
>  hours of installation just to try and see the results... 
You only need a /boot
partition if root is ext4, because legacy grub 
doesn't grok it.  If you only use ext3, you can get away with two 
partitions: / and swap.  (I have a separate /home, but no /boot.)

__________________

this is simply not true
since F14 for sure ext4 is default, F13 i neve installed from scratch

/dev/md1      ext4     29G  8,0G   21G  28% /
/dev/md0      ext4    485M   51M  430M  11% /boot
/dev/md2      ext4    3,6T  1,2T  2,4T  34% /mnt/data

[Joe Zeff]

On 10/23/2011 07:57 AM, Miguel Cardenas wrote:
>  I would like to keep simple my disk, and reading the Fedora
> installation
>  guide found that there are only 3 partitions required, SWAP, BOOT (ext3)
>  and ROOT / (ext3)... I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
>  partition but let's do it in the Fedora way... so, I want to know if
>  this layout may work for me... I want to ask before doing it to save
>  hours of installation just to try and see the results... 
You only need a /boot partition if root is ext4, because legacy grub 
doesn't grok it.  If you only use ext3, you can get away with two 
partitions: / and swap.  (I have a separate /home, but no /boot.)

[Steven I Usdansky]

I keep it fairly simple. Just one ext4 partition, for / per distro with the bootloader
installed to the partition. The system came with Vista and a recovery partition on a 500GB
hard drive. Here's the process I followed:
1. Shrink the Vista partition (I gave it 50 GB)
2. Create a 1GB boot partition immediately following the boot partition.
3. Create an extended partition for my Linux distros and misc. files
4. Create a 20GB partition for Fedora, and a couple of 80GB partitions for the misc.
stuff

5. Install Fedora using the 1GB boot partition as /boot, and the 20GB partition as / (no
swap). Install grub to the hard drive's MBR.

6. Unmount /boot and remount the boot partition on /media 

7. Copy the contents of /mnt to /boot
8. Install grub on the Fedora partition
9. Manually modify the grub config file on /media to chainload the bootloader on the
Fedora partition.

Keeping a separate boot partition not tied to any one distro I might happen to install
works for me; YMMV.

[Tim]

On Sun, 2011-10-23 at 09:57 -0500, Miguel Cardenas wrote:
>  For years I used to create 2 primary partitions, SWAP and EXT3, but
>  now I found that Fedora requires a different layout with more
>  partitions like other *nix operating systems that distribute the space
>  in more areas for home, root, usr, etc. 
That's news to me.  It used to be *advised* to use several partitions,
then that advice changed to being a bare minimum of / /boot and swap
(great fun in doing a fsck on a whopping huge partition on today's huge
large drives).  But either was just advice, only the bare minimum were
required, and swap could be a file in a partition, though that hasn't
always been a good idea.
>  
>  I still don't like the idea of an independent boot partition but let's
>  do it in the Fedora way... 
It used to be advised to have a separate /boot partition, near the start
of the disc, so that the BIOS will have no trouble reading it to begin
booting.  Some computers couldn't boot up from files deep into the
drive.  I don't know how valid that concern is, any more.

Now, there's a second purpose to the /boot partition, it's also used to
hold large amounts of files during an upgrade-installation, since
that /boot partition will not be removed during an upgrade, but other
partitions may be.

-- 
[tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
read messages from the public lists.

[Reindl Harald]

Am 23.10.2011 16:57, schrieb Miguel Cardenas:
>  For years I used to create 2 primary partitions, SWAP and EXT3, but
> now I found that Fedora 
>  requires a different layout with more partitions like other *nix operating systems that
> distribute 
>  the space in more areas for home, root, usr, etc. 
fedora REQUIRES nothing but a partition

you can even use a single partition without seperate boot
you can manually define a partition layout in anaconda

/usr is SURELY not required and not recommended for several reasons
and not part of teh default partition scheme - per default fedora
would install LVM (a not so smart default)

but it is not wise to have /home on the same partition as the system
if you ever want to reinstall it and a small /boot is also wise because
look back at times where / as ext4 was possible but not for /boot

[root@ns2:~]$ df -hT
Dateisystem   Typ     Size  Used Avail Use% Eingehängt auf
/dev/sdb1     ext4    6,0G  1,2G  4,8G  20% /
/dev/sda1     ext4    494M   20M  475M   4% /boot
[root@ns2:~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 14 (Laughlin)

[root@buildserver64:~]$ df -hT | grep -v tmpf
Dateisystem   Typ    Größe Benut  Verf Ben%% Eingehängt auf
rootfs      rootfs     15G  4,8G   10G  33% /
/dev/sdb1     ext4     15G  4,8G   10G  33% /
/dev/sda1     ext4    190M   43M  148M  23% /boot
[root@buildserver64:~]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Fedora release 15 (Lovelock)

>  I still don't like the idea of an independent boot
>  partition but let's do it in the Fedora way...  
/boot on a own partition doe snot hurt and offers more flexibility
but it is not required

so, I want to know if this layout may work for me... I want to ask
>  before doing it to save hours of installation just to try and see the
> results...
>  
>  #1 PRIMARY type 0c (Win95 Fat32 LBA)
>  #2 EXTENDED
>       A - SWAP type 82
>       B - BOOT /boot type 83 (linux ext3)
>       C - ROOT / type 83 (linux ext3) 
why will anybody use ext3 these days instead ext4?

>  And one additional doubt... Fedora worked fine on this laptop but
> just bought a new one, it comes with Windows7
>  preinstalled and want to keep the original system backed up... Do you think it is safe to
> use Clonezilla for any
>  modern hard disk? My doubt is because I have a relatively old IDE disk (80Gb) that after
> restoring a Clonezilla
>  backup it does not boot anymore, I guess it is due a possible different geometry
> interpretation by my installed
>  linux and the Clonezilla bootable linux, since the disk is ok and works always perfect...
you can even boot with a live-cd and make "dd if=dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=16M" and
make
a bytewise clone on an additional disk or even use dd over a pipe and ssh to clone
a whole machine including a raid10 - linux is not as stoopid as windows if hardware
changes

>  And, after the backup, during the Fedora installation, it asks how to
> use the hard disk, there is an option to
>  shrink a used partition, but would it work with Win7? As far as I know a NTFS partition
> can not be shrinked... is
>  it possible? can you comment something about this? 
be advised to make a full backup!

NTFS can be shrinked all the last years and current gparted is supporting it
but maybe winodws is too dumb to recognize the change and will not boot

can not say anything about this because i never use windows outside vmware