Re: How to Partitions the disk to install FC4

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 19:04:14 +0100, Unruh <unruh-spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"CAPSKOV" <capsnkkof@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

Hi, i have two disks. Windows XP is on hda1. I want to install FC4 on
hdb1(former OS is windows 2K). There are many important files on hda2
and hdb2. Then I choose Manually partition with Disk Druid. I set a
swap partiton(600M) and a data partition mounted at / (the remain of
hdb1)
When I click the NEXT,  it continue to the next installation step.

So what is the problem? 

Confidence.

If I recall correctly, the FC4 installation program first gathers information
asking you questions, then, when it has all the info it goes ahead to caryy out
all the actions, while go for a swim in the local penguin.. er, swimming pool.

But the Installation Guide say:

A Fedora Core system has at least three partitions:

A data partition mounted at /boot 

That is in general just silly. There may be cases where a /boot is
recommended, but they are rare.


Agree, if you computer is less than 5 years old, it is is unlikely
to be needed.

My recommendation is
/partition for system loaded stuff.
/usr/local for use stuff. Put in a /home directory here
and link /home to it.

mv /home /usr/local/home 

This step applies if you already have a /home partition

ln -sf /usr/local/home /home
That way when you upgrade you could wipe / and reinstall without destroying
the locally installed suff or your home directory.


I will adopt this with the next install I do. No, sooner, because I already have
a separate /home partition, and I will do

  mv /usr/local /home
  ln -s /home/local /usr

that is, I will do the reverse, have the separate file system mounted in
/home and link /usr/local to /home/local.

(BTW: I never feel confident that "link to" means what it should. I can
always imagine the way of thinking that leads to the wrong interpretation.)


A data partition mounted at /

A swap partition

What's the matter? 

If I choose Automatic partitioning,Keep all partitions and use only
existing free space, it does not  destroy my windows,all right?


1. Backup
2. Backup
3. Backup
4. -
5. Backup.

Get yourself a suitable account somewhere, Yahoo or elsewhere, and
upload the most valuable files.  I bet you will find the really
important ones make up only a few tens or hundreds of megabytes.
Burn a CD.

Hard disk are fallible.  Murphys law applies to everybody, even to you.
I am the *only* exception. No others.

Honestly, I don't know, I have never had the nerve to try it.  I really
presume "true, it will leave alone your Windows partition", but why trust
the guys at RedHat (who are behind the anaconda installer)?

I always choose manual partition, and spend a good stupid half hour
figuring out "Should I put the swap partition between the root partition
and the home partition. That way it does not have to seek so far.. until
I realize that I'm spending more time trying to be "smart" than I could
ever hope to save by having a "smart" partitioning plan.

You don't need to be as stupid as me, but if you are nervous for the
files in your Windows partition, I suggest you just partition the disk
manually.  I have tried that, and it was easy.  (Yes, there was a minor
stumbling block in the GUI, I can't remember what it was, but nothing you
could loose data with, just that I had to click around a few times not
knowing where to proceed, until I happened to click the right place and
Ah, there it was.

In that Gui, you specify three things for each partition: how big it
will be, how to format it (file system type - chose swap for swap and
ext3 for all others), and where to mount it. You can leave it unmounted,
and swap cannot be mounted.  The program does not carry out any
partitioning until you are satisfied with the whole setup, and you
confirm yes, you want to go ahead.

How big is your disk? I have now used up 10 GB of my 20GB / partition.
That includes a whole lot of programming tools three or four complete
kernel sources and many other things.  I think you will easily fill the
first 5GB of the / partition. Making it much larger than 10GB is probably
a waste of space.  Your swap partition, make it around 400 MB.
People debate such figures.  It is a strange thing, you don't want to
use it, because it slows down your computer (terribly), but you rather
don't want to have too litle of it, because the kernel begins killing
processes.

Some say "twice the size of the RAM", but that makes less sense nowadays
when people have 500 MB ram.  Actually, if you have less RAM, you could
needn more swap, not less, but in the end it's the amount of programs that
you will be running concurrently that matters. If you run enough to fill
200MB ram + 400MB worth of swap, you are doing something more than casual
web browsing and learning Linux.  If you do video editing, you will
have special demands for both cpu and ram.  For most others 400MB is
a reasonable number.

The rest of the space - use it for /home or /usr/local, throw a dime to
decide.

-Enrique
.

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