tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 I'm planning on going completely Linux this weekend-killing my XP drive. Here's the deal: I have a total of 60gb, a 40gb HD and a 20gb HD. I'm trying to decide how to split it up for my Linux system. Looking for other peoples suggestions on the setup, anyone? keep in mind: while primarily a desktop/one user system, I will also be running a mail server (qmail) and web server (apache) for my domain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 What all do you use your computer for -- games, multimedia, mp3s, or just word processing? Anywhere, here is a thought: / - 2-3 gigs /home - 20 gigs /usr - 10 gigs /var - 5 gigs /www - 2-3 gigs /backup - 20 gig drive my two cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aru Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 What all do you use your computer for -- games, multimedia, mp3s, or just word processing? Anywhere, here is a thought: / - 2-3 gigs /home - 20 gigs /usr - 10 gigs /var - 5 gigs /www - 2-3 gigs /backup - 20 gig drive my two cents. Your layout is perfect (except that I'd put www and backup into /var -- e.g. /var/www and /var/backup) But 2-3 gigs to / ???? That's a big waste of space, isn't it? If the opt dir is not used, then 400Mb for / is far enough. If opt is used for example for KDE, then the best thing to do is a new /opt partition. The less disk access in / the less problems you'll have in the future. My advice is: / --> the minimum space needed 300-500mb (safer) /usr --> A big partition (here go all the installed programs) /usr/local --> more or less like /usr (useful because of updates) /home --> the size will be up to you /var --> here goes all the dynamic system stuff, such as backups, http, ftp, logs, ... the size will depend on the usage of the system /tmp --> for security reasons is a good idea to have a dedicated partition (the size doesn't need to be big since you can clean it periodically) /opt --> (maybe useful, for KDE I think) ofcourse there are special cases, e.g. a dedicated ftp partition, but that goes under /var tree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 i will be using it for a variety of tasks. games, multimedia (image creation, possibly playing around with making songs if i can find a good program for that), mp3's (need my music), and any of the various tasks of a college student. also, probably a bit of programming here and there. basically, just about anything you can think up, i will probably do at some point and time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 i might leave about 5-10 gigs open on the second drive to use for playing around with beta's or other distro's, maybe. (just thought about this because i saw the post about 9.1 beta 1) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 You could also get another "fast" drive and replace the 20 gig (I know more money!) and then try to optimize the system based on 2 concurrent drives running. There are strategies out there. The 20 gig (based on its size) is probably too slow to make much of a difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 You could also get another "fast" drive and replace the 20 gig (I know more money!) and then try to optimize the system based on 2 concurrent drives running. There are strategies out there. The 20 gig (based on its size) is probably too slow to make much of a difference. gah! spend more money, are you mad? I'm not sure what exactly your're talking about here, but what do you mean by "fast"? RPM's? DMA? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 Nope.. SCSI :) You know.. I can find some fast scsi drives really cheap.. it's the scsi controller that kills you in terms of price. Anyway, I kinda hate the multiple partitioning system used, I prefer to keep it simple, a 12 gig / partition and an 8 gig /home partition. I usually clean reinstall every 6 months anyway (upgrading to newest mandrake) :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 Referring to RPM. A 20 gig drive strikes me as OLD. They don't even make them anymore I don't think. Since they they have better and faster drives with smarter technology and shorter seek times. As far as expense, they are not all that expensive... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 the 20 gig drive is not THAT old :-P (ok...maybe 2 years...) in fact, I think both my 40 and 20 gig run at 7200 RPMs, I'd have to double check that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Scrimpshire Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 /home - 20 gigs/usr - 10 gigs I don't mean to butt in, but if this is primarily a one-user system and you're not selling space on your domain, I think that the size of these two partitions should be reversed, shouldn't they? I have a 15 gig HD and my setup for these two is /home - 4-1/2 gig /usr - 3 gig and my /usr is 95% full and /home is only 15% full and I download lots of stuff and put it in ~/tmp and never delete it after install. I've been trying to figure out a way to swap those two partitions... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted January 10, 2003 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 As far as expense, they are not all that expensive... think: college student, makes maybe $120 every two weeks-if that. buys food, pays for gas. has cell phone bill. anything more than $20 is expensive :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aru Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 I've been trying to figure out a way to swap those two partitions... Divide the /home in two and create an /usr/local partition on the free half. That should will empty a lot your /usr partition :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuzzylizard Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 Your layout is perfect (except that I'd put www and backup into /var -- e.g. /var/www and /var/backup) The reason for having the backup on the second drive is in case the first one crashes, or vice-versa. I just has this happen to me and it is not fun. This setup would allow you to mirror important data on two drives in case one goes down. You lose your install, but at least all your critical files are nice and safe on the second drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted January 10, 2003 Report Share Posted January 10, 2003 well if its 7200 then its fast enough :) When I said inexpensive, I meant in terms of what you usually pay for an addition to your computer of any short, ya know? But if you can, maybe you can play around with schemes that involve using 2 hard drives at the same time such as having swap on the second drive or splitting up the frequently used system partitions (vs data partitions). Also, with the backup, you can use www.partimage.org to backup each partition to the other drive, but you need a data partition to backup too. That way if either fails, you can restore it easily enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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