Partition trouble w/Linux

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July 10th, 2003, 06:37 AM
hjack

Partition trouble w/Linux

After reading the many heated debates on here I have decided to switch from Red Hat to Slackware. Here is the problem. Red Hat is very n00b friendly when it comes setting up your partitions. In fact, it does it for you!! Slackware.....no such luck. So I done some reading and was going to install but have come to a brick wall. The slackware site recommends have 3 partitions which are /, /usr, and /home. All candy or cake but how much to each partition? And what about the swap partition (btw the what $%^& is a swap?)? I have roughly 10 gig available (dual boot). Could someone help me out with this?

hjack
July 10th, 2003, 06:52 AM
theuser

Sorry, I can't answer all of the questions in your post, but I think that I can help you with the swap partition question. Swap is used by your computer when it needs more RAM (Random Access Memory) than your computer has available. I think the rule of thumb is to usually set the size of the swap partition to about twice as much as the amount of RAM you have... ie 128 megs RAM, 256 megs swap. Good luck with the rest of your install.
July 10th, 2003, 02:05 PM
rcgreen

First, read a nice tutorial on FDISK.
Honestly, it is really easier to use than the goofy GUI thingy that ships with
Redhat. I use Redhat, and I partition with FDISK. My guess is that slackware
will use FDISK by default.

Once you've installed two or three times, you'll be an old pro.
:cool:
July 10th, 2003, 03:23 PM
hjack

Its not the actually partitioning that is the problem. Its the size of the partitions that I can't figure out.

hjack
July 10th, 2003, 03:35 PM
rcgreen

Size is something you gather from experience. /usr is often where installed software goes,
so should be big enough for anticipated needs. /home is for users personal directories.
Contrary to what some say, you could install everything on one single partition. On
the other extreme, some admins may have parts of the system on different drives
entirely.
:cool:

here's an example of a drive (about four and a half gig), and it just has one
main partition, plus swap.

Code:

/dev/hda1 * 1 490 3935893+ 83 Linux /dev/hda2 491 523 265072+ 82 Linux swap
July 10th, 2003, 04:02 PM
hjack

Okay, so how do I create a linux swap using fdisk? I seen extended, primary, and a couple of others but no linux swap.

hjack
July 10th, 2003, 04:24 PM
rcgreen

In fdisk, give the command l to list partition types:

Code:

0 Empty 1b Hidden Win95 FA 64 Novell Netware bb Boot Wizard hid 1 FAT12 1c Hidden Win95 FA 65 Novell Netware c1 DRDOS/sec (FAT- 2 XENIX root 1e Hidden Win95 FA 70 DiskSecure Mult c4 DRDOS/sec (FAT- 3 XENIX usr 24 NEC DOS 75 PC/IX c6 DRDOS/sec (FAT- 4 FAT16 <32M 39 Plan 9 80 Old Minix c7 Syrinx 5 Extended 3c PartitionMagic 81 Minix / old Lin da Non-FS data 6 FAT16 40 Venix 80286 82 Linux swap db CP/M / CTOS / . 7 HPFS/NTFS 41 PPC PReP Boot 83 Linux de Dell Utility 8 AIX 42 SFS 84 OS/2 hidden C: df BootIt 9 AIX bootable 4d QNX4.x 85 Linux extended e1 DOS access a OS/2 Boot Manag 4e QNX4.x 2nd part 86 NTFS volume set e3 DOS R/O b Win95 FAT32 4f QNX4.x 3rd part 87 NTFS volume set e4 SpeedStor c Win95 FAT32 (LB 50 OnTrack DM 8e Linux LVM eb BeOS fs e Win95 FAT16 (LB 51 OnTrack DM6 Aux 93 Amoeba ee EFI GPT f Win95 Ext'd (LB 52 CP/M 94 Amoeba BBT ef EFI (FAT-12/16/ 10 OPUS 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux 9f BSD/OS f1 SpeedStor 11 Hidden FAT12 54 OnTrackDM6 a0 IBM Thinkpad hi f4 SpeedStor 12 Compaq diagnost 55 EZ-Drive a5 BSD/386 f2 DOS secondary 14 Hidden FAT16 <3 56 Golden Bow a6 OpenBSD fd Linux raid auto 16 Hidden FAT16 5c Priam Edisk a7 NeXTSTEP fe LANstep 17 Hidden HPFS/NTF 61 SpeedStor b7 BSDI fs ff BBT 18 AST SmartSleep 63 GNU HURD or Sys b8 BSDI swap

that's type 82

After creating it you use command t to change the type.