Is my dual boot approach appropriate?

[Guest PunchDRunk]

I have a small personal website, which I previously ran using a free Win32 server in WinXP. However, I have been playing around with a Mandrake Linux webserver for several months, and I think I am ready to move to it permanantly, for security and also to learn something new. To test it, I installed Linux on an older 3rd computer, and moved the website over leaving the WinXP computer untouched. Its running well, so now I want to put all the parts into a single computer with Dual Boot capability.

 

This computer will be my #2 computer, and will have several uses. We already have a primary, WinXP machine.

 

1. Web and FTP server (linux)

2. Secondary computer for internet or office use (word processing, etc.), in case the primary is being used. (linux)

3. Gaming (WinXP). My son and I sometimes go online together or on the LAN and game with/against each other. Games such as Warcraft 3, Halo, etc. I dont plan to have any office type programs on the Windows partition, only gaming and an unforseen us of Windows. No multimedia.

4. File Backup. I want to backup server files and the database, pictures, and other important files from my #1 computer. So, this section needs to be accessible from both the windows and linux on #2, and from the #1 computer.

 

 

Here is my approach. I have a 40gig, 7200 RPM harddrive and a 12gig slower HD. I am going to partition the the big drive into a 25gig Windows NTFS partition, and then a 15gig Linux partition. Then, I plan to partition the second 12Gig drive into FAT32.

 

Put windows on first, partition the Second HD to Fat32, then MandrakeLinux10.0 on remaining space. The computer will spend 80% of its time sittind idly as a webserver, if my wife needs on the internet she can use it as linux, and on the occasional instances that my son and I play, or I need a WinXP, I will restart and boot into XP (but the webserver wont work).

 

With the FAT32 drive, I can share files and folders to between each OS, and potentiall the #1 puter, and also back stuff up. My only concern is that if its running as Linux, my #1 computer wont be able to see files on the FAT32 drive. I would rather not create a share folder on my #1.

 

Any advice or criticism of this setup would be appreciated.

[SpikeyKlitske]

Uh you said 3rd computer, thus if you and your son need to play in winxp why not designate the 3rd computer to linux and web/ftp server and leave the 2 other machines in dual boot with winxp installed?

Also, why give winxp 25GB if you only use it to play games on it. Unless you definetely need all that space i would give 25GB to linux as that is your preferred environment and leave 15G or less to winxp. In winxp make sure to disable or limit the use of diskspace for trashbin and system recovery and set the swap file to a fixed size (1.5-2 times your system RAM, max 1GB). That will free up diskspace under winxp, cause less fragmentation on your winxp partition and prevent your system to crash due to insufficient room for the swap file.

[SoulSe]

You could also use Cedega to play those Windows games in Linux. I have used it for Warcraft III, which runs perfectly and it is supposed to work really well with Halo, although I haven't tried it myself.

[Guest PunchDRunk]

I appreciate the comments

 

My wife is complaining about have 3 computers setup, so one goal is to get rid of the third.

 

You might be right about the partition sizes. I am not expecting to install very much on the linux side, and games are very large. So that is why I was going to make the Windows partition bigger. I could probably do an even 20/20 split.

 

I have not tried running any games in Linux, that will be something to consider.

 

Thanks again,

[aRTee]

1 hint I always give: whatever you do, create an extra partition to serve as root for when you want to switch to another (newer or different) Linux distribution.

With 15GB you can do:

5GB / ext3 (or whatever journaling filesystem)

1GB swap

5GB /mnt/altroot (or whereever you'd like to have this drive mounted) ext3 (as before, whatever else rocks your boat)

4GB /home ext3 (see above...)

 

 

Note that Linux can share the FAT32 drive via samba, so your other machine can have access to the FAT32 data on the linux machine.

Write support for NTFS is not straightforward under Linux, but reading NTFS filesystems is a walk in the park, so there too you could give other machines access to that data.

 

Other than that, I see no big problem in the way you want to partition your drives.

[adamw]

If you're going to use one system purely as a server, you can probably keep it and get it to a state sufficiently unobtrusive that your wife won't know it exists. One of the great things about Linux is reliability - if you set it up as a simple webserver and make sure it doesn't get hit by any power problems, you can just leave it sitting there till kingdom come (or the hardware fails) and it will work fine. So keep the third box, get it all working, then unplug and dispose of (or put away) all the peripherals - keyboard, monitor, whatever else. you don't need them. All you need is the box and its network connection. If you need to tweak anything on it, just ssh into it from either of your other machines. This is called headless operation, and it's a common state for servers - if a machine is a server it doesn't need to be a classic desktop PC sitting on a desk with a monitor and a keyboard, you can stick it in a cupboard and forget about it.

[aRTee]

I second adamw's idea with a short illustration: my server has an uptime of over 300 days now; it's an internet/download/file/print/scan/music server, has no keyboard, mouse or display attached to it and is quite nicely hidden away.

I will be updating it shortly (well..) so my uptime will get reset, but that's not the point. The point is: I rebooted it 300 days ago, since then just used it. No further messing with the system necessary, it just works. Hassle free.

[Guest PunchDRunk]

Thanks again for the input. I did consider just putting the server box behind the desk, out of sight, and letting it sit there "headless" as you say. I was actually considering getting a KVM switch so that I could easily switch to it. I have never done SSL before, but I am sure I could figure it out.

 

Right now I tend to FTP files (pictures or video mostly) to the server across my LAN, then login to the server and tweak whatever I am doing if necessary. I am new to linux, and need a GUI, so I have found its much easier to be working on the server itself. Plus, I am using all of this as an excuse to learn Linux. If I just put it headless behind the desk, I would never actually be forced to use it. I am about to try to learn to edit my pics with GIMP, for instance. I am also using OpenOffice occasionally. So, I do use it as a desktop some.

 

Plus, by getting rid of the 3rd computer, I can give it to my Mom, who has been wanting a computer.

 

I am very happy with Mandrake so far. Its very easy to use. Once the gaming and driver support becomes on par with Windows, I may go totally to Linux, so I see this as a learning process.

 

Thanks,

[Guest PunchDRunk]

Also, I just noticed that you said Linux could share the FAT32 drive. So, I could use Samba to get Linux to share that drive, and it would behave like a windows shared folder. In other words the Windows computer could see the Drive on the Linux. Right now, I can only use Linneighborhood to get the Linux machine to see the WinXP computer, but not the other way around. I have been using FTP for that purpose, which works fine.