So how do you partition yours???

Ok so I'm changing around a laptop I have and installing Windows XP Pro and Ubuntu on the same hard drive.

Windows XP is set up on a 40GB NTFS partition and I was going to use the other 40GB for the Ubuntu set up.

Now I've no problem creating the partitions, I was just wondering what way you'd set them up and why?

I've read many discussions as to the way people would do it, but just thought I'd throw out the topic here for discussion.

Would you use:

/usr
/usr/local/
/tmp
/home
/
/swap
/var/mail (In case you are running a mail server)

Just interested to see what the general feeling is.

Cheers,
Wolfe

The basic layout on freebsd is:

/
/var
/tmp
/usr

I usually add /usr/home to that. The reason is simple, now I can do a full reinstall without loosing my files :)

Mine makes sense to me and how I do things so it may not work for you at all:

/swap

/

Sometimes if I need to set up a server I'll do this:

/swap

/

/home

/var (If it's on it's own partition you can't fill root with log files).

And sizes or percentages?

The general rule for swap was always either 2X the RAM or 2.5, but this was also back when 32 MBs of RAM was a lot. And was before I ever owned a computer.

I still do a big swap just in case, but for the most part making swap around 512 MBs or even a Gig is not a bad idea unless you're low on disk space and not on RAM.

If you don't have the HD to spare, make it like 512.

I've used like 772MBs or so for Swap.

For / make it big enough. I generally make it at least 4 Gigs.

If you're adding /home and the others, make /home big because that's where your stuff is going to go.

/var I generally made around 3 or maybe 4 gigs at most because I don't need it bigger.

The best way to find out would be to use a test machine and try it out. If you don't have an extra box, go for something that makes sense to you.

You can always do fine with just /swap and / so don't feel you have to make it more complicated than need be.

With CD writers and DVD writers being so cheap these days backing up is easy enough where another partition really just adds to complexity.

Yeah I used to make the swap 2 times the RAM but at most 1GB.

Have used many variations with little or no diff in performance.

The only thing I tend to def stick with is a large /home and a 1GB fat32 partition for cross platform compatability.

Sounds like you have it pretty well figured out to me with the Fat32 thing.

Ah as always - you never know it all so it's nice to get other peoples opinions who know stuff too - might have came across something on their travels that I haven't.

True, I think you're doing pretty good all around with this including the outlook.

For a personal install on a laptop with limited space I tend to use the following

/
/boot

Keeping it simple you see.

Depending on how much RAM is available of course. With my usage I never seemed to use the swap, so I reclaimed some GB :) No problems to report in the last few years.

Quote:

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The only thing I tend to def stick with is a large /home and a 1GB fat32 partition for cross platform compatability.

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Large home is important for multi-user systems in particular. Can be too for your own files so you don't lose them. But I rarely seem to reinstall, so I wouldn't benefit much from giving that it's own partition, aside from calculating it incorrectly and running out :( (keep it simple!)

It's good to put /var on it's own also. So log files gone crazy don't cause other problems in the system ... a full disk will stop programs from writing a pid file from example, so they won't start :( But that's more for servers. And there's a lot of configurations you can use depending on your situation.

And also, FAT32. Hmmm. I use it on 'pen' drives and the like only because I might be plugging it into someone elses computer with a Windows, but otherwise it's ext2. You can get an ext2 driver for windows right here. ext2 > FAT32. Larger single file size for one. But if FAT32 is okay for your circumstances, no point in changing. Keep it simple!