Re: Newbie: Partitioning help--size, mount, and label

Lawrence Gould wrote:

> I'm a confused. I'm upgrading from SuSE 9.2, which I haven't used
> much, to SuSE v10 by installing fresh. I thought I'd change the
> partitions and filesystem types while I'm at it. First, a bunch of
> questions. Details of the existing setup and proposed follow.
>
> 1) I've got three SCSI HD: sda (Windows 2000) and sdb (Linux) are both
> 17.1 GB. sdc (4 GB) mostly contains Windows pagefile, plus browsers
> caches, and other caches. I thought I'd use part of sdc as a Linux
> swap.
> Dumb question, but I haven't found it addressed anywhere: May a
> swap partition be on a drive *other* than the one with /, /home, /usr,
> etc?
> Wouldn't a swap file on separate HD speeds things up, hardly
> noticeable as it might be?

Yes, swap can be on another partition, but will probably need about 1GB of
space. As to speeding things up, my 1GB machine never touches swap, even
though I am running several server apps, a desktop and about 10 or so apps
open at any one time...

> 2) I thought each partition needed a mount point? (See also next two
> questions.)

Y

> 3) Is there supposed to be some correspondence between mounts and
> labels?
> v10 installation is keeping the labels I had, but it's suggesting
> different mounts, eliminating two entirely (sdb2 was /usr and sdb6 was
> /home).
>
> 4) I thought I needed at the very least mounts for root (/), /usr, and
> /home. Guess not, huh? Why not? v10 is suggesting just root and swap.
> What happens to /usr and /home?
>
> 5) I assume I should take advantage of reformatting to reiserfs where
> possible, namely where Linux native (ext3) exists, except for /boot
> (sdb1; leave that as is; if it ain't broke...).
> The disadvantage to formatting to reiserfs: Can't use PM 8 on
> Linux drives. (But I can use Yast on the Linux side; PM on the W2K
> side.)
>
> 6) I like different partitions for different categories of software: a
> partition each for OS and apps, for currently used data files, for
> long-term storage (rarely used data files and downloaded stuff), and
> for a separate working area (such as for editing audio or visual
> stuff). The swap, again, seems to me to be better on a third HD.
>
> In addition to the current boot partition, should I:
>
> a) Assuming I may keep swap on sdbc2...
>
> b) Resize partitions sdb2, sdb3, sdb5, and sdb6 for directories root,
> /opt, /usr, and /home -- say around 5, 2, 5, 5 GB, and then resize
> those partitions/directories later as I become familiar with space
> reqirements?
>
> c) During v10 installation, make the mount points for those four
> partitions: root, /opt, /usr, and /home? (This depends partially on
> question 2.)
>
> d) Reformat those four partitions to reiserfs.
>
> e) And what about the labels? Should I mimic the mount points?
>
> f) Bonus questions: Does the order of the directories matter? Does it
> matter which directory is in or out of the extended partition?
>
> I thank you for your patience in explaining this to me, and for
> your suggestions. I hope to return the favor -- to Linux newbies
> (versus Windoze newbies)!
>
> Sincerely,
> Larry
>
> ========================
> Partitions -- Existing
>
> Device Size Type Mount Label
> (GB)
>
> /dev/sda: 17.1 GB
>
> sda1 14.4 Extended
> sda2 2.7 Win95 FAT32 [C: OS]
> sda5 3.2 HPFS/NTFS [D: Apps]
> sda6 2.6 HPFS/NTFS [E: Data]
> sda7 8.5 HPFS/NTFS [F: Archive
> and working
> space]
> /dev/sdb: 17.1 GB
>
> sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
> sdb2 6.8 Linux native /usr /
> sdb3 1.0 Linux swap swap
> sdb4 9.1 Extended
> sdb5 7.1 Linux native /
> sdb6 2.0 Linux native /home /home
>
> /dev/sdc: 3.9 GB
>
> sdc1 2.5 Win95 FAT32 [pagefile]
> sdc2 1.4 Linux swap swap
>
> ========================
>
> dev/sdb partition (17.1 GB) proposed by SuSE v10
>
> sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
> sdb2 6.8 Linux native /
> sdb3 1.0 Linux swap swap
> sdb4 9.1 Extended
> sdb5 7.1 Linux native (Reiser) /
> sdb6 2.0 Linux native
>
> ========================
>
> dev/sdb partition (17.1 GB) -- a better approach?
>
> sdb1 101.9 MB Linux native /boot
> sdb2 5.8 Linux Reiser / /
> sdb3 2.0 Linux Reiser /opt /opt
> sdb4 9.1 Extended
> sdb5 5.1 Linux Reiser /home /home
> sdb6 4.0 Linux Reiser /usr /usr

.

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