Partition trouble w/Linux

[hjack]

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

[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.

[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.

[hjack]

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



hjack

[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.


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

/dev/hda1   *         1       490   3935893+  83  Linux
/dev/hda2           491       523    265072+  82  Linux swap

[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

[rcgreen]

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

 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.