Advice on Partitioning
tb
I have a desktop PC with openSUSE 11.4 (64 bit) on it. I now would like
to install another Linux distribution (side-by-side and also 64-bit) for
comparison. I have not yet decided which distribution to install and at
this time I am just interested on some advice regarding how to partition
the HD in a rational manner.
1) This is the output of "fdisk -l":
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xa9af3f5e
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 4208639 2103296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 4208640 46153727 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 46153728 976773119 465309696 83 Linux
2) And this is the output of "df -h":
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs 20G 8.7G 11G 47% /
devtmpfs 3.0G 232K 3.0G 1% /dev
tmpfs 3.0G 2.8M 3.0G 1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda2 20G 8.7G 11G 47% /
/dev/sda3 437G 592M 436G 1% /home
The way I interpret the above data, my Swap file is approx. 2.0 GB, Root
is 20 GB and, /home is 437 GB. Correct?
If so, I am thinking about making Swap 6 GB (equal to the RAM of my
desktop), Root 40 GB (since it is already 47% used!), and /home 200 GB.
The rest would be left for the partitions of the second Linux
distribution (which I have not yet chosen!): 40 GB for Root (/dev/sda5)
and 200 GB for /home (/dev/sda6). For this I would be using Parted
Magic 6.1.
Does it make sense?
PS: I do not want the two distributions to share /home, just in case
they use different file systems! (I believe that openSUSE's default is
ext4 but that other distributions could require ext3, ext2, Reiser...)
--
tb
Kruppt
Since you can only have 4 primary partitions and you already have 3,
that only leaves room for one more partition.
I would create a linux extended partition (make it sda4)
and create logical partitions inside the extended partition.
You would need to resize sda3 firstly,
then create the extended partition from the free space,
then create the logical partitions needed to install the second OS.
You can use rsync to copy your file systems/data
on the existing partitions to a backup drive.
rsync -av /mnt/source-partition/ /mnt/target-partition-directory.
(Should always backup when doing this type of work,
things can happen, cat stepping on UPS on/off switch during resize, etc.)
40 GB for the root partition would be fine,
and would allow for OS expansion,
especially since you intend to keep your data on a separate partition.
I have not used PM in 10 years, as I use fdisk, resize2fs, mke2fs etc.
for partitioning and creating filesytems, so can not help with PM.
Actually All the tools you need to do low level work of this type
are found on a myriad of Linux LiveCD's.
SystemRescueCd being just one of them.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Most mainline distros are either using ext3 or ext4 file systems.
The installer generally allows you the choice of which one you prefer.
Ext4 is the newer filesystem with added features.
You can create the filesystems with
mke2fs -t ext3 /dev/target-partition or
mke2fs -t ext4 /dev/target-partition
before installing OS if you prefer.
Kruppt
