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Partitioning Your Hard Drive During A Linux Install

8 points by askorkin 17y ago

zokier 17y ago
This is how I would partition my disk: 1. /boot - having a nice, working grub is always a plus 2. /home - keep your data safe 3. /data - name can be anything, but I would keep large media files (movies, mp3's, .iso's etc separate from anything else). If you have dedicated disk for such storage (like I do), it would be mounted here. FS could NTFS for Windows compatibility. 4. swap - This is optional, as modern Linuxes can use swap files too afaik. 5. / - I don't see the point of having /var or /usr or anything system-related on separate partitions in desktop machines. Maybe /etc could be stored on a separate partition, as many files residing there are useful to have when reinstalling, or to be shared between installations. btw /tmp is usually mounted as tmpfs which is practically ramdisk, so you don't really need a partition for that.
- chanux 17y ago
  Well I just have this feeling that the article is artificially voted up. And no offense, but askorkin seems to be self promoting. 18 of his 21 submissions are from his own blog. Note: It's completely OK to post your own content on HN.
iigs 17y ago
If you have a large hard drive and are not sure how you need it partitioned, you can set up the entire disk as a Volume Group in LVM and give your partition structure your best guess with relatively small volumes. Then when you outgrow a volume, extend the volume ( http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/extendlv.html http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/extendlv.html or use distribution GUI tools). This is relatively uncommon in the Linux world, but it works very well. I believe this is best practice on commercial UNIXes that have logical volume support out of the box (such as AIX). It works particularly well for desktops or servers where you may pre-configure the entire hard drive by default and then add additional drives to the volume group at a later time.
- windsurfer 17y ago
  I would also like to note that a straight dd on normal partitions does boot correctly, but if you dd an LVM group, it still functions fine! Useful if your hard drive is dying and you need to to a dd-rescue.
- jws 17y ago
  You will find that the filesystem barrier operations don't work on LVM except in the very latest kernels. If you want integrity and performance you may not wish to use LVM. Background: The general case is hard. The LVM folk were holding out for the general case but eventually yielded to practicality and coded the easy case (single physical device). Extra work for them, but smiles for users.
TweedHeads 17y ago
I usually don't partition my linux drives, but on windows it's a different story. I recommend you to at least have it partitioned in three. One for windows C:, one for your data D:, one for linux E: As soon as you install windows, reassign "MyDocuments" to D: Whenever you have a windows crash, you just reinstall and keep your data safe. You could also boot from linux and try some repairs or backups. I've done that for every family member and friend, and couldn't be happier everytime I get "that" call. No matter how many times I wear that "I won't fix your computer" t-shirt, I always get the call.

8 points by askorkin 17y ago

This is how I would partition my disk: 1. /boot - having a nice, working grub is always a plus 2. /home - keep your data safe 3. /data - name can be anything, but I would keep large media files (movies, mp3's, .iso's etc separate from anything else). If you have dedicated disk for such storage (like I do), it would be mounted here. FS could NTFS for Windows compatibility. 4. swap - This is optional, as modern Linuxes can use swap files too afaik. 5. / - I don't see the point of having /var or /usr or anything system-related on separate partitions in desktop machines. Maybe /etc could be stored on a separate partition, as many files residing there are useful to have when reinstalling, or to be shared between installations. btw /tmp is usually mounted as tmpfs which is practically ramdisk, so you don't really need a partition for that.

chanux 17y ago
Well I just have this feeling that the article is artificially voted up. And no offense, but askorkin seems to be self promoting. 18 of his 21 submissions are from his own blog. Note: It's completely OK to post your own content on HN.

iigs 17y ago

If you have a large hard drive and are not sure how you need it partitioned, you can set up the entire disk as a Volume Group in LVM and give your partition structure your best guess with relatively small volumes. Then when you outgrow a volume, extend the volume ( http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/extendlv.html http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/extendlv.html or use distribution GUI tools). This is relatively uncommon in the Linux world, but it works very well. I believe this is best practice on commercial UNIXes that have logical volume support out of the box (such as AIX). It works particularly well for desktops or servers where you may pre-configure the entire hard drive by default and then add additional drives to the volume group at a later time.

windsurfer 17y ago
I would also like to note that a straight dd on normal partitions does boot correctly, but if you dd an LVM group, it still functions fine! Useful if your hard drive is dying and you need to to a dd-rescue.
jws 17y ago
You will find that the filesystem barrier operations don't work on LVM except in the very latest kernels. If you want integrity and performance you may not wish to use LVM. Background: The general case is hard. The LVM folk were holding out for the general case but eventually yielded to practicality and coded the easy case (single physical device). Extra work for them, but smiles for users.

TweedHeads 17y ago

I usually don't partition my linux drives, but on windows it's a different story. I recommend you to at least have it partitioned in three. One for windows C:, one for your data D:, one for linux E: As soon as you install windows, reassign "MyDocuments" to D: Whenever you have a windows crash, you just reinstall and keep your data safe. You could also boot from linux and try some repairs or backups. I've done that for every family member and friend, and couldn't be happier everytime I get "that" call. No matter how many times I wear that "I won't fix your computer" t-shirt, I always get the call.