80 gig hdd and partitioning in linux

[yamawho]

I'm running Mepis 6.5 RC1 on the rig below using a 8 gig hdd and it runs great.
I want to use an 80 gig hdd since the 8 gig is too small.
ASRock 775I65G mobo
CPU Celeron D 3.06 ghz
2 x 256mg DDR400
Maxtor 80gig sata hdd
Floppy
Plextor PX760A

This hdd will only have Mepis on it.
What size should the partitions be on this 80 gig hdd ?

Last time I just used the auto option when I installed ...

[k0NG0]

swap : 1GB
/ : 10GB
/home : remainder (i.e. "69GB")

You could make / use 15-20GB if you like, but 10GB should be enough unless you load both GNOME and KDE and fourteen bajillion apps.

I have openSUSE 10.2 with GNOME installed and with 7.5GB partitioned for /, 3.3GB is currently free.

[yamawho]

Thanks for a straight answer kONGO

A simple question in a linux forum can get complicated.
Here is an example ...

"If you just want Mepis, my advice is
hda1 8GB for root
hda2 24GB /home
hda3 8GB alternate root [backup or beta test]
hda4 ----extended partition approx 40GB-----
hda5 1GB linux-swap
hda6 10GB music, vids, "whatever" storage
hda7 10GB additional storage or backup.
hda8 10GB additional storage or backup.
hda9 9 GB [roughly] additional storage"

Although I understand the reasons to have separate partitions for data, many linux users are obsessed in having 15 distros in which to boot from as well.

Me ... I want the simple things in life like for my mouse and keyboard to work, to be able to print and go online. As a bonus I can watch Xvid's use bittorrent and do many other right out of the box.

I started with version 6.5 beta 7 and am presently running RC2.

BTW thanks pointreyes for bringing this distro to my attention

[k0NG0]

To be honest, how often does just one partition, out of a bunch of them, go kaput? It's never happened to me, but I've had one 75GXP go south with the click of death a couple years back. In general, I'd think it's more likely that the drive itself goes south than just a partition (unless you're doing something funny with the partition tables).

Generally, if you want to multi-boot (especially with Windows installed as well), you'd put /boot on its own little partition (500MB or so). That'd mean GRUB would survive even if you rip out Linux, and you could still boot Windows no problem (the alternative is to redo NTLDR MBR beforehand, but sometimes you forget, and Recovery Console is boring).

As for spreading out data over various partitions, I guess it could help when doing backups, but you could just create /home/yamawho/videos and put all videos there, etc. No real need for separate partitions, unless you're paranoid about fragmentation. From what I know, you don't get a lot of that with ext2/3 or ReiserFS, at least comparatively much less than with FAT or NTFS.