How Should I Partition My Hard Drive????

[Mogul]

Okay, let me start off by letting you know that I'm a total 100%, newborn Linux newbie. I've got a box with a triple boot Windows ME/Windows 2000 Pro/Windows 2000 Adv. Server. I've got approximately 7.6 GIGS of hard drive space that I set aside unpartitioned to install Red Hat 7.0. Now that I have it in hand, I get halfway into the install when I realize I have no idea how large to make my partitions. I've learned how to fool with fdisk in expert mode install, but I have no idea what size to make the partitions, how many to make, etc. etc. etc. I have no idea what the difference is between the / partition and the /boot partition and the /main? etc. Could someone spell out in plain english what size I need to make each partition, and what each size needs to be named with edit in fdisk? I would like to do this install without interrupting my current Windows boot.ini file, so it was suggested by a friend of mine to create a boot disk during install instead of installing LILO, and using this boot disk to boot up Linux whenever I needed it. Is this the best way to do this? Or is there a way to install LILO without installing a program like Boot Magic or without interrupting my Windows setup. I'm dying to learn all about Linux, but man it's a pain in the A$$ to install!!! I had so many issues with my Promise ATA 66 card that I ended up swapping my CD and DVD ROM drives unto it and putting the hard drives back on the mainboard IDE controllers. Now that I've solved that problem I would like to get this thing up and running. Somebody help please, or I will be forced to just continue using Windows and not deal with the headache of this install. Thanks in advance for your help and sorry I talked your ears off to get my point across. :)

My Specs:
384 MB of RAM, Duron 650 on a DFI AK-74 EC MoBo.
2 WD hard drives. 40 GIG and a 13 GIG. 40 GIG is partitioned approx 33 GIG for C drive (Program Files, My Music, etc....FAT 32), 3 GIGS for D drive (Windows ME, FAT 32) 4 GIGS for E drive (Windows 2000 Pro, NTFS). 13 GIG is partitioned 5 gigs for F drive (Windows 2000 Adv Server, NTFS) and the rest is left unpartitioned awaiting Linux install (approx 7.6 gigs).
40 GIG master/13 GIG slave on IDE 0, 12X8X32 Burner master/LS-120 slave on IDE 1, 10X DVD ROM master/36X CD-ROM slave on IDE 0 on Promise ATA 66 PCI controller.

If you need more specs just ask...... :rolleyes:

[trekker]

Yo! Welcome!!

LILO should have no problems booting up your various os. It can coexist with your win2k boot loader. What will happen is that LILO (when installed) will give you 2 options on bootup: Linux and Dos (assuming you do not change the defaults). Selecting linux will bring you to Redhat and Dos will bring you to the win2k boot loader where you can choose between win2k Pro, winME etc.

7.9 G is lot of space. IMHO, the easiest partition scheme to follow for a start is:

swap 128M (is more than enough for your setup)
/boot 16M
/ (the remaining space. If you paln to put all the packages in, set aside at least 2G)

When you become more familiar or if you are adventurous enough, you can craet seperate partitions for /home (something like My documents in windoze) so that you will not lose your data when you upgrade etc and /var is especially impt if you are running a server coz the log files might just fill up all your space if not kept seperate.

I'm in a bit of a rush... not a very detialed answer I'm afraid... hope this helps and have fun! :)

[Mogul]

Trekker,
Thanks for the advice. I did the /boot partition at 16M, the / at 4 GIGS and the <Swap> at 384M (Red Hat suggested a swap file the size of your RAM). Everything installed fine and even though I believe LILO was installed, I can't boot up Linux. I was never prompted to create a boot disk so I'm not sure how to make one. Can someone tell me how I can go about making a boot disk with the install CD or by downloading one? Thanks in advance for your help once again.

[WeDeliver]

Mogul,

I have learned that Grub can be more forgiving when using Windows 2000 and your new boot loader is way back on the drive. In my experience anyway.

[plasmid]

that swap file is probably WAY to big. you already have a whole lot of ram and I think it would be pretty hard to use that up so that your system starts using you swap. I have 256 of ram and I rarely if ever touch my 128 meg swap

-plasmid

[trekker]

Hmm... strange.. the installation should prompt you to make a boot disk. Sorry, I do not know how to make a boot disk when you cannot even boot to linux. The boot disk is customized to your system setup so I guess it can't be downloaded off the net.. If you can at least boot into linux, then you can use "mkbootdisk" to create one.

Since it's a new install, maybe you want to reinstall? But still, I find it strange that it doesn't prompt you to make a boot disk.

Where did you get your distro from? Myabe you want to try Redhat 7.1?

Sorry I am not of further help :(

And, yes, your swap is too large for your setup... no harm though... :)

[CMonster]

For Certain cups printer drivers a 120MB swap file is required - I have 512MB of memory but keep a 256MB swap just in case I go crazy with animation in Gimp -but I have never touched the swap yet and probably never will.


http://www.dslextreme.com/users/cmonster3/squirtguin.gif

http://www.dslextreme.com/users/cmonster3/smallrock1.gif

Animations created in Gimp :)

[ 01 May 2001: Message edited by: CMonster ]

[Mogul]

Trekker,
I reinstalled and was prompted for a boot disk this time. Everything worked out beautifully finally. I even get the linux/dos prompt splash screen without the boot floppy, so I guess I did something right! I guess that means Lilo installed okay without hosing my Windows boot files? A couple more questions since I'm totally new to this. When I log in with my username and password, I get the username @ local host username $ prompt where I have to type startx. Is there a way to configure Linux so I can choose between Gnome/KDE on boot up? I understand this is usually the norm, but somehow I didn't set up the GUI log on right. Also, is there a way to get the Red Hat splash screen prompt to say Linux/Windows rather than Linux/Dos? I know this was something I should have done during install, which I did the first time around, but wasn't prompted to do so on the second install. It's not really a big issue, just something to perfect on my system :D Thanks for all the help guys, and I look forward to learning more about Linux. A buddy of mine is getting me a copy of RH 7.1, which I hear works a lot better with things such as DVD ROM's and such. When I do the upgrade, I will change the swap partition to a smaller partition.