still havin probs :)

[Edgar Allen]

Brian Densmore writes:
>
>You don't need to partition a 30 GB harddrive (in Linux), but on my 18 GB I did
>this: primary partition 1 = /boot first @ ~64 MB  (overkill)
>primary partition 2 = FAT        @ ~2 GB
>ext partition 5 = FAT              @ ~6 GB
>ext partition 6 = /usr              @ ~3 GB
>extended partition 7 = /var     @ ~2.3GB
>ext. part. 8 = /tmp                  @ ~2.3 GB
>ext part. 9 = /home                @ ~2GB
>
>so on a linux only you could substitute the two FAT partitions with one for 
>/opt & /usr/src
> 

Linux must get the entire boot image from within the first 1024 cylinders.
Not a big problem on todays' disks.

So a 32MB /boot comes first.

Then swap for performance should be next. 128MB and up to 2048GB are OK.
If you have multiple disks then a 128MB partition on each will act as a
striped set, using a block from each in turn, to get even better performance.

You can have three primary, one extended, and twelve logical partitions
on each disk.  The extended is a container for the logical partitions.

I prefer /home to be the third primary partition because you can then
overwrite, possibly resizing, all the others without losing your users'
preferences.

An install of the full RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, etc. takes about 2GB.

RedHat 7.0 and others to follow have the ftp, http, etc. server homes
under /var so that might need to be large on a particular install, depends
on how much Web and ftp serving you intend.

So the partition table might be:

/dev/hda1	/boot		32MB
/dev/hda2	swap		512MB
/dev/hda3	extended	10000MB
/dev/hda4	/home		Rest of the disk
/dev/hda5	/tmp		256MB
/dev/hda6	/		1000MB
/dev/hda7	/usr		2000MB
/dev/hda8	/var		2000MB
/dev/hda9	/opt		2000MB

Which leaves almost 3 gigs to add more, fiddle with, or adjust sizes of
the logical partitions.

Of course it is your system, do what you think is best.  I just like
upgrading the OS without needing to reconfigure all of my desktop too.

Consider creating seperate logins for KDE, GNOME, WindowMaker, etc.
Then you can experiment with different setups without trashing what you
already have.

With 30GB I might actually put 20GB into the extended partition to allow
more playing around.  But I collect .mp3 files which I prefer not to lose
or move around too much.