Re: completely new to home Linux

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 07:58:14 -0500, Bruce Coryell wrote:

x86 systems have a max of four primary and extended partitions(per system,
not per drive). Linux likes at least three (/boot, /, and /swap), Windows
can live on one partition. I recommend 20 GB for Linux for starters and
the rest of your drive for Windows. If you have data that you want to
use with both OS's, format your Windows partition as FAT32 (which Linux
will recognize as VFAT), otherwise it can be NTFS (which is problematic at
best under Linux).

Um, not exactly.

Maximum of four *primary* partitions on IDE drives. If one of the primary
is "extended", then you can have additional "logical" partitions. This is
an IDE thing, not "x86"; for example, SCSI disks on x86 platforms behave
differently than IDE disks on x86 systems, and have different partition
constraints. Not that I remember the exact details, but I do know that
you can have quite a few partitions on your IDE drives if you plan it out
correctly.

However, with that said, it is a Very Good Idea(TM) to put windows on the
first partition of your IDE drive. The first "real" partition. I'd wager
that WinXP has overcome this, but older versions of windows could not boot
if their boot "stuff" was installed past the first 1024 sectors on the
disk (or something real close to that, like I said, I don't remember the
details exactly! But the take-home message is that Windows should be on
the first primary partition).

For a 20GB disk, with 512 MB RAM, dual boot, my recommendation is as
follows:

Part 1: "primary", 7GB, Windows
Part 2: "primary", 5GB, Linux "/" partition
Part 3: "primary", 512MB, Linux swap
Part 4: "extended", n/a MB
Part 5: "logical", remainder of disk (~7.5GB), Linux, "/home" partition

I always make "/home" the biggest. I *ALWAYS* put /home on a separate
partition from the Linux system partitions. This way you can completely
upgrade your system or switch distros and not lose any data. Oh, and I
never dual boot anymore. Linux Only! I mean, what's the point of dual
booting? get Crossover Office instead!

--
JDS | jeffrey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
| http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

.

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