Several simple questions about installing...

[Guest choey]

my friend just downloaded me mdk 9.1 isos and before i installed it, i thought i'd ask some things.

 

first, i want to know how much space a full install would take up. i was thinking 7.2 gigs would be ok.

 

second, it IS the most, if not one of the more, user-friendly (noob-friendly, rather) distro right? cause i just started college and i won't have much time to fiddle around with it like i did with slack 9 for most of the day.

 

finally, i read that it comes with openoffice (forgot what version). and i was wondering whether it supported loading and saving of m$ word xp documents.

 

i'm looking forward to installing mdk very much. after i see that everything is working fine (including my printer :( ), i'm planning on formatting my windows parition, install xp over (just for gaming), and reduce its size so mandy can have it all

 

PS: i was gonna search for my questions but i see no search funtion on this board... is there one?

[liquidzoo]

First off, Welcome to our board!

 

To give you an answer to your questions, Mandrake will take up as much or as little space as you want to give it. 7.5 gigs will be plenty. There are several people on here who have it installed on much smaller partitions than that. I would suggest that you use custom partitioning and create at least a separate /home partition. I think most people would recommend 3 (4 including swap) partitions /, /usr, and /home. Give the bulk of your space to /home and maybe 1.5 GB each to / and /usr.

 

Mandrake is a very newbie friendly distro. More than any other distro that I have tried. I love it.

 

I'm not sure if the version of OOo that comes with Mandrake will read and save Office XP docs. I would imagine so but I never use Office XP anymore, so I'm not sure. I believe if it doesn't, the newer version that is out there does (urpmi openoffice). Someone else will have to clarify this for me.

 

Also, as for the search feature, it is right on the main page. There is a quick search text box above the forums, and there is also an Advanced Search just below the header at the top center of the page (The text is yellow).

[schussat]

I'm not sure if the version of OOo that comes with Mandrake will read and save Office XP docs.  I would imagine so but I never use Office XP anymore, so I'm not sure.  I believe if it doesn't, the newer version that is out there does (urpmi openoffice).  Someone else will have to clarify this for me.

 

I move simple documents back and forth with no problem. Current versions of OpenOffice.org deal pretty well with Word documents, but you can expect some formatting changes to accompany complex documents -- documents with lots of section breaks, tables, or inline objects may show some problems. I've also found that its display of tracked changes isn't quite consistent with Word's, so if you're sharing documents a lot (and using track changes), you'll want to watch for that.

[theYinYeti]

I think most people would recommend 3 (4 including swap) partitions /, /usr, and /home.

IMO, there's no point in having more than 2 (3 with swap) partitions: / and /home, as long as:

- the machine is not a server,

- no part of the filesystem is intended to be shared between several OS,

- the said partitions are on the same hard drive.

 

In short, for a standard single PC, connected to internet via a provider, with no world-accessible server on it, and with only Mandrake on it, I would go with:

- swap,

- / : 3 GBytes (more like 2.5 if you need space for yourself),

- /home : everything else.

- also maybe a small Fat32 partition for sharing files between Linux and Windows.

 

But in case you're interested, here's the real way I would do it:

- / : 3GB

- /local : everything else

And after install:

- move and link /home to /local/home

- move and link /usr/local to /local/system/usr/local

- move and link /opt to /local/system/opt

- create /local/shared for all data shared by all users.

 

Yves.

[bvc]

I've said it b4 and I don't need to say it again because theYinYeti said it :wink:

In short, for a standard single PC, connected to internet via a provider, with no world-accessible server on it, and with only Mandrake on it, I would go with:  

- swap,  

- / : 3 GBytes (more like 2.5 if you need space for yourself),  

- /home : everything else.  

- also maybe a small Fat32 partition for sharing files between Linux and Windows.

[Guest anon]

Unless like me, you play around with a few kernels.

I always have a 200MB /Boot partition. :P

[schussat]

But in case you're interested, here's the real way I would do it:

- / : 3GB

- /local : everything else

And after install:

- move and link /home to /local/home

- move and link /usr/local to /local/system/usr/local

- move and link /opt to /local/system/opt

- create /local/shared for all data shared by all users.

With coffee only flowing for a moment so far this morning, I'm a little fuzzy. But is this essentially just a way to keep on a separate partition all of the potential user-modified data, without splitting up the disk into half a dozen partitions? I haven't seen it done this way before, and I think it looks really nice; is this in fact how your partitions are currently set up? I guess that with the links, all interactions with anything in /local should be pretty transparent -- do you ever encounter any problems after install (anything not deal nicely with the symlinks, for example?)?

 

Thanks for the nice suggestion! If I get around to installing 9.2 and cleaning out my hard drive, I just might give it a try.

[theYinYeti]

But is this essentially just a way to keep on a separate partition all of the potential user-modified data, without splitting up the disk into half a dozen partitions?

Just that ;-)

I haven't seen it done this way before, and I think it looks really nice; is this in fact how your partitions are currently set up? I guess that with the links, all interactions with anything in /local should be pretty transparent -- do you ever encounter any problems after install (anything not deal nicely with the symlinks, for example?)?

 

Thanks for the nice suggestion! If I get around to installing 9.2 and cleaning out my hard drive, I just might give it a try.

That's the way my partitions are set-up, and I've never had (and will never have) any problem with that. To be honest, there's one thing that I don't like: many programs feel the urge to always de-symlinking paths, so for example, I say to OpenOffice that my home is /home/yves, and it calculates that it is in reality /local/home/yves. Java does that a lot also. But anyway, all that's just about paths' aesthetics, because my symlinks don't change from one day to the next, so all goes on as expected! And I'm happy with this configuration :) No more having to give some place to the programs I install, and later finding that I need this space for an ISO I download (which never happens but you get the idea).

 

Yves.

[bvc]

I've never understood the /boot thing :lol: I've ran as many as 12 diff kernels, didn't have a /boot, and didn't ever have any probs. The one time I did set up a /boot, a week later, everything was toast :roll: .....and I was one confused puppy :lol: ...so I stick with / :wink:

 

Oh, and yes, Mandrake is as easy as it gets, at this present time.

[Guest anon]

The one time I did set up a /boot, a week later, everything was toast :roll:

Im guessing you set all partitions for Reiserfs. You can have the /boot as reiserfs, but its more difficult to set up, especially if you use the grub bootloader. Best way is ext2 (or 3) for /boot... the rest reiserfs.

No, you don't need a /boot partition. But I see it as an extra safety measure, im always messing around with stuff.

Here's my insane reasoning behind it. /root and /home are accessed the most, so if things get really screwed up, its possible for the kernel to maybe get messed up also. If you create a /boot partition, its hardly accessed at all, so its less likely to get screwed up. Make any sense? No? Oh well, i told you i was insane. :lol:

[bvc]

Make any sense? No? Oh well, i told you i was insane. :lol:

Well at least you tried :wink: I've asked for an explaination on numerous occation and no one bothered :roll: ...they probably just don't know why they do it :lol: . Yes I made /boot ext2. I've always just backed up the /boot DIR....but I've never had to fall back on it.

 

Thanks!

[Guest anon]

..they probably just don't know why they do it :lol:

:lol: :lol:

[Guest choey]

thanks for all your replies.

 

reading them, it seems like making partition for / and /home is a good idea, but i have a couple of questions... :P

 

1. let's assume that i have different partitions for / and /home. from /, will i be able to cd to /home by just typing cd /home, or will i have to mount that partition or something of that nature?

 

2. what are some incentives of making a different parition for /home?

 

i'll probably have mandrake installed around 9 pm or so :P . it'd be better if i decided early.

 

thanks.

[bvc]

/home is where all the users preferences and personal files are. So a separate partition allows for smaller, and easier backup of those personal files and prefs. It also allows you to install/upgrade (clean install) to newer version of the distro and still retain your user stuff. You simply tell the install not to format /home.

 

/home will automatitcally be mounted at boot so yes, cd /home will get you there, but even better is that /home/user_name (same as cd ~) is where you will automatically be when opening a filemanager or terminal, so you normally will not need to cd to /home* unless you tell the filemgr or term to start somewhere else.