Proper way to set up partitions and boot options for Linux

FB · 10-14-2005, 02:33 PM

Ok, i dont' want to run into a situation like i just had where XP was no longer bootable.

I am thinking i will then need the following partitions on my drive.

/
/boot
/home (maybe)
/swap

what sizes should i use for /, /boot, and /swap?

is there a way to install GRUB so in the future when i decide to delete linux and remerge the partitions with XP i dont' have to go to XP recovery console and restore the MBR? can i just install grub in /boot, or am i not thinking about this correctly?

basically it is too much of a hassle to go to my school and have them type in the Master Admin password for me so i could restore the MBR, i want to avoid this at all costs.

Valium_abx · 10-14-2005, 02:38 PM

Hi,

Can't help you on the sizes of the partitions, but when it comes to bootloader I might give you a hint.

When I had a triple boot (winxp win2000 and freeBSD) I used Boot Magic (Powerquest) and it worked like a charm ... just select right OS on startup and there it went. When uninstalling a OS you can just delete it from the windows GUI for Boot Magic. Might be worth looking into ... Never used GRUB however so ... if someone could explain that to you ... Either way you have a choice!

Greetz

**pointreyes** · 10-14-2005, 03:14 PM

Don't install GRUB on the MBR. Linux allows you to boot from the partition that it's installed on. Or in your case you can use /boot since you listed that as a partition you want to use. Swap should be double of your RAM unless you have a Gig or more then you might want to use a Gig and see what happens. /boot can be small-250Meg max. I normally don't even bother with a /boot partition and just use the root partition (/) for GRUB.

Use XOSL (freeware) for a boot manager. XOSL will find GRUB on whatever linux partition you use for GRUB. If you delete the Linux partitions you can uninstall XOSL and Windows will boot up just as it did before. No recovery of the MBR is needed.

XOSL can be found here: http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm

Note: I have never used XOSL because before I knew about it I was and still am using the commercial product called System Commander.

**k0NG0** · 10-14-2005, 04:16 PM

Another suggestion would be to actually boot Linux using the Windows NTLDR boot loader. That way, deleting Linux wouldn't hurt the booting of Windows at all, as you're still using the default Windows boot loader on the MBR.

It does take some fiddlin', and I never did get it to work when I installed Slack 9.1 a couple of years ago. But I didn't try very hard either.

http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2337

pepsi_max2k · 10-14-2005, 04:29 PM

hey, i've got kinda the same problem so won't bother with a new thread...

basically, having just moved to uni where they've blocked most of the ports on their network, i'm no longer able to play online video games and therefore have pretty much lost any reason i had to use windows. so with mandriva 2006 just released, i figured i'd give it a try.

unfortunately, it seems the linux world is not one for noobs with little previous experience of linux based os's (i've used sun machines & booted knoppix before, that's about it) and there's not too many guides out there on the best way to install the thing (like tweakhound's xp install guide - thank the lord for that thing). so, here's my situation:

2 drives, one sata one pata.
sata is partitioned into two ntfs parts, C: with windows and progs on, D: with data on.
pata is partitioned into two more ntfs parts, E: with next to nothing on and F: with backups of C: and D: on.

i was thinking "easy, just get rid of anything on E and install Mandriva. simple". i wish. from what i've read so far, looks like i should try to de-format E and then chose "Use free space" during the partitioning bit during the mandriva install (at least that's the most obvious one they have, seems there's an option for everything other than "use/abuse my empty ntfs partition"). and now i'm reading all this stuff about partitions for /swap, /boot, /home etc. and i've no idea what to do anymore. my best guess is: /boot ~250meg FAT32 partition to stick XOSL on, /home is used for documents? not too bothered about that just yet, i'm only trying things out. /swap i'm guessing is the swap file, and as with windows you want a seperate partition for it for best performance. like i say, i'm just trying it out... unless it's for some kinda shared data you're swapping between xp and mandriva. maybe, but i'm sure theres other way to do it... "/". i have no idea what that's for. and as with the first guy, no idea about sizes either. i know it's personal preferance so you can't say exactly, but with a 50gig partition to spare i guess a /home partition would want more than a few megs.

so... can someone please give me a walkthrough what i should be doing, what partition options to choose during the install and just how many seperate partitions i should be making for /slashythings.

**pointreyes** · 10-14-2005, 04:47 PM

For beginners to Linux I highly suggest that you throw out the myraid of partition options. You only need two partitions.

Equate "swap" to Window's Page File.
Equate "/" to C:\ but in realistic non-Windows but more proper talk-it's the root directory.

Install everything on the root directory including GRUB. Don't use FAT32 for GRUB, XOSL should be able to read the Linux partition to see GRUB, if it can't then it's not a true boot manager.

I have already addressed the size of the "swap" partition. For the root partition use whatever makes the most sense for the amount of utilities you use. I have found 10Gig to be very generous for a person new to Linux. For distros that only require 1 CD to install, try 5Gig or less. For distros that use a DVD, try 10GB.

De-formating is not really a term I would use-it's more like re-formating.

Most Linux distros will re-format whatever partition you decide to install Linux on. If you are going to shares OSes on the system and one of them are Windows it would be helpful to have a FAT32 for data storage. Do not use FAT32 for program or OS installation.

TweakHound · 10-14-2005, 05:15 PM

With modern distros you only need:
swap, /, and /Home (if you want). 1GB is more than enough for a Linux swap file.
I use Acronis OS Selector (part of Disk Director). It keeps XP and Linux completely out of the loop.
Pointreyes is right-on 10GB is perfect for /, gives you plenty of breathing room. Also correct about bootloader. Install it on the same partition as /.

FB · 10-14-2005, 05:30 PM

I have OS selector, maybe i should see how it works.

i am limited to 1 drive though on my laptop, no getting around that.

looks like i will be using 1Gb for /SWAP and about 7Gb for / that should be more than enough i think.

pepsi_max2k · 10-14-2005, 06:03 PM

just found a site that actually explains the whole install/partitioning thing for mandrake/mandriva. well worth a read:
http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/install.html

so now i'm thinking ntfs formatted E: drive gets turned into:

hda5 / (ext3) ~10GB
hda6 swap (linux swap) ~2gigs
hda7 /home (ext3) ~20gigs
hda8 /mnt/win_d (fat32) ~20gigs

and another 250meg fat32 (/boot?) for xosl. no idea if the hda numbers are right but i'm sure it don't matter.

Fish_abx · 10-16-2005, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pepsi_max2k

so now i'm thinking ntfs formatted E: drive gets turned into:

hda5 / (ext3) ~10GB
hda6 swap (linux swap) ~2gigs
hda7 /home (ext3) ~20gigs
hda8 /mnt/win_d (fat32) ~20gigs

and another 250meg fat32 (/boot?) for xosl. no idea if the hda numbers are right but i'm sure it don't matter.

The main advantage of a separate partition for /home is that you won't lose it if you decide to reinstall your OS. Your settings will be overwritten (unless you've backed them up), though. It also provides plenty of space for music and video files, unless you keep those on a separate disk or on a shared partition with Windows.

FWIW, I have 1 gig of ram and a 1 gig swap file. In six months, the swap file has been used about half a dozen times, and only hit up for about 4 megs at that. Linux is very good at memory management.

I have a fairly well loaded Linux installation here, but even so my / root partition has only used up 6 gigs. However, that would increase very quickly if I started to install a lot of games, a lot of stuff for serving ftp or a website, and cached all the downloads from updating the OS.

If you are just starting out on Linux, there's no need to fret over this. A lot of folks wipe and reinstall a few times while getting the hang of things anyway. One of the nicer things about Linux is that reinstalling both the OS and the programs is fairly quick and painless. Say an hour, and you are back in action again. On Windows it can easily take half a day or a day.

sorrow · 10-16-2005, 10:23 AM

From a system admin point of view, i would have to say the main point of seperate partitions is :

1. a filled up partition won't crash your system
2. its easier to repair say /root then haveing to repair all of them (like Fish says)
3. easily expand where needed, and no need to let space go to waste.

pepsi_max2k · 11-05-2005, 12:43 PM

so i've tried out mandriva 2006 and suse 10.0 now.

mandriva install was simple, shouldn't have worried about all the partitioning stuff. i just halved the size of the 1st partition on my 2nd drive and formatted it as FAT32, then left the rest unallocated. mandriva just auto configured everything, giving me a "/" about 7 gig, "/swap" about 1 gig and "/home" in whatever was left. install was easy peasy. but the using it was crazy. for some reason it was running really slow, KAT desktop search constantly kept crashing, had a horrible time trying to install anything (could linux installs be any harder?!?). anyway i think i messed it up a bit and needed to reinstall...

got a copy of suse 10.0, and decided to give it a try. install was fine again, got rid of the /home directory and just left a 1 gig "/swap" and "/". much better than mandriva, runs much smoother than mandriva did and had most stuff installed that i wanted. still have a couple of problems with it, lilo and grub won't boot windows (they did with mandriva) and it wounldn't recognize my second ethernet port and xmms wouldn't play mp3s by default, but after a few hours downloading i managed to sort the mp3 stuff out.

but still, installing stuff on linux sucks. download tar.gz, configure, get error, find an rpm library, install, configure tar.gz again, get error, find more rpm libraries, configure tar.gz again, make, get error, change path variables, make again, get error, make again, error mystereously appears, make install, try to start program, reboot, try to start program again, look for program execution files... give up after 4 hours trying to install a simple media player plugin and decide .exe's ain't so bad afterall... i'm kinda getting the hang of it though.

Cogar · 11-14-2005, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pepsi_max2k

so i've tried out mandriva 2006 and suse 10.0 now.

mandriva install was simple, shouldn't have worried about all the partitioning stuff. i just halved the size of the 1st partition on my 2nd drive and formatted it as FAT32, then left the rest unallocated. mandriva just auto configured everything, giving me a "/" about 7 gig, "/swap" about 1 gig and "/home" in whatever was left. install was easy peasy. but the using it was crazy. for some reason it was running really slow, KAT desktop search constantly kept crashing, had a horrible time trying to install anything (could linux installs be any harder?!?). anyway i think i messed it up a bit and needed to reinstall...

got a copy of suse 10.0, and decided to give it a try. install was fine again, got rid of the /home directory and just left a 1 gig "/swap" and "/". much better than mandriva, runs much smoother than mandriva did and had most stuff installed that i wanted. still have a couple of problems with it, lilo and grub won't boot windows (they did with mandriva) and it wounldn't recognize my second ethernet port and xmms wouldn't play mp3s by default, but after a few hours downloading i managed to sort the mp3 stuff out.

but still, installing stuff on linux sucks. download tar.gz, configure, get error, find an rpm library, install, configure tar.gz again, get error, find more rpm libraries, configure tar.gz again, make, get error, change path variables, make again, get error, make again, error mystereously appears, make install, try to start program, reboot, try to start program again, look for program execution files... give up after 4 hours trying to install a simple media player plugin and decide .exe's ain't so bad afterall... i'm kinda getting the hang of it though.

I am making a guess here, but it appears that your SUSE Linux 10.0 installation did not go as well as it could have. I used the default settings (for the most part) and GRUB works just like it is supposed to. SUSE and XP load as desired. I think there is a way to fix it in YaST, and kONGO's post in this thread where I was installing Mandrakelinux 10.1 may help you sort things out:
http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showth...12#post1239812

Regarding the updates, using YOU (YaST Online Update), adding packages and updating is point-and-click easy. Incidentally, I am not stating that SUSE is the end-all Linux distro. Still, it does seem to be very user friendly and YOU takes care of the dependencies as well. (There is a button entitled "check dependencies" or some similar name that takes care of this.)

pepsi_max2k · 11-16-2005, 01:04 PM

hmm, yeah, i'm starting to get the hang of the whole rpm thing...

as for the boot loader, where do i start. i guess at the part where a total noob tries to configure the bootloader file thinking "what's the worst one digit can do".... que bios post... "L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99".... :eek: hmmm... anyway, after a bit of panic, a mess about trying to install mandrake again and failing, repair stuff from the suse boot disc (involving repairs to virtually everything bar the bootloader which it refused to touch), i finally tried the "boot installed OS" option and it's fine, well, cept ithe repair bit did something funny to the drives and i can't access one of my windows partions from suse. eh well. maybe i'll figure out how to boot windows from the bootloader someday, for now i'm happy enough having the bootloader on a floppy and just removing the floppy to boot from windows

10-14-2005, 02:33 PM	#1
FB Re-Retiring Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MN, USA Posts: 24,834	Proper way to set up partitions and boot options for Linux Ok, i dont' want to run into a situation like i just had where XP was no longer bootable. I am thinking i will then need the following partitions on my drive. / /boot /home (maybe) /swap what sizes should i use for /, /boot, and /swap? is there a way to install GRUB so in the future when i decide to delete linux and remerge the partitions with XP i dont' have to go to XP recovery console and restore the MBR? can i just install grub in /boot, or am i not thinking about this correctly? basically it is too much of a hassle to go to my school and have them type in the Master Admin password for me so i could restore the MBR, i want to avoid this at all costs. __________________ Bye Bye ABXZone.....Rest In Peace.
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10-14-2005, 02:38 PM	#2
Valium_abx Gotta hav'em :D Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Flanders! Posts: 674	Hi, Can't help you on the sizes of the partitions, but when it comes to bootloader I might give you a hint. When I had a triple boot (winxp win2000 and freeBSD) I used Boot Magic (Powerquest) and it worked like a charm ... just select right OS on startup and there it went. When uninstalling a OS you can just delete it from the windows GUI for Boot Magic. Might be worth looking into ... Never used GRUB however so ... if someone could explain that to you ... Either way you have a choice! Greetz __________________ Download and install Mirc
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10-14-2005, 03:14 PM	#3
pointreyes The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it's more like a death march. Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 18,159	Don't install GRUB on the MBR. Linux allows you to boot from the partition that it's installed on. Or in your case you can use /boot since you listed that as a partition you want to use. Swap should be double of your RAM unless you have a Gig or more then you might want to use a Gig and see what happens. /boot can be small-250Meg max. I normally don't even bother with a /boot partition and just use the root partition (/) for GRUB. Use XOSL (freeware) for a boot manager. XOSL will find GRUB on whatever linux partition you use for GRUB. If you delete the Linux partitions you can uninstall XOSL and Windows will boot up just as it did before. No recovery of the MBR is needed. XOSL can be found here: http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm Note: I have never used XOSL because before I knew about it I was and still am using the commercial product called System Commander. __________________
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10-14-2005, 04:16 PM	#4
k0NG0 Remembering TQ Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Sweden Posts: 13,638	Another suggestion would be to actually boot Linux using the Windows NTLDR boot loader. That way, deleting Linux wouldn't hurt the booting of Windows at all, as you're still using the default Windows boot loader on the MBR. It does take some fiddlin', and I never did get it to work when I installed Slack 9.1 a couple of years ago. But I didn't try very hard either. http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2337 __________________ Use Firefox - "the one that blocks all the schmutz" Feeling multicore elation? Remember this correlation: Amdahl's Law.
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10-14-2005, 04:29 PM	#5
pepsi_max2k Registered User Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 103	hey, i've got kinda the same problem so won't bother with a new thread... basically, having just moved to uni where they've blocked most of the ports on their network, i'm no longer able to play online video games and therefore have pretty much lost any reason i had to use windows. so with mandriva 2006 just released, i figured i'd give it a try. unfortunately, it seems the linux world is not one for noobs with little previous experience of linux based os's (i've used sun machines & booted knoppix before, that's about it) and there's not too many guides out there on the best way to install the thing (like tweakhound's xp install guide - thank the lord for that thing). so, here's my situation: 2 drives, one sata one pata. sata is partitioned into two ntfs parts, C: with windows and progs on, D: with data on. pata is partitioned into two more ntfs parts, E: with next to nothing on and F: with backups of C: and D: on. i was thinking "easy, just get rid of anything on E and install Mandriva. simple". i wish. from what i've read so far, looks like i should try to de-format E and then chose "Use free space" during the partitioning bit during the mandriva install (at least that's the most obvious one they have, seems there's an option for everything other than "use/abuse my empty ntfs partition"). and now i'm reading all this stuff about partitions for /swap, /boot, /home etc. and i've no idea what to do anymore. my best guess is: /boot ~250meg FAT32 partition to stick XOSL on, /home is used for documents? not too bothered about that just yet, i'm only trying things out. /swap i'm guessing is the swap file, and as with windows you want a seperate partition for it for best performance. like i say, i'm just trying it out... unless it's for some kinda shared data you're swapping between xp and mandriva. maybe, but i'm sure theres other way to do it... "/". i have no idea what that's for. and as with the first guy, no idea about sizes either. i know it's personal preferance so you can't say exactly, but with a 50gig partition to spare i guess a /home partition would want more than a few megs. so... can someone please give me a walkthrough what i should be doing, what partition options to choose during the install and just how many seperate partitions i should be making for /slashythings.
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10-14-2005, 04:47 PM	#6
pointreyes The race for quality has no finish line- so technically, it's more like a death march. Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 18,159	For beginners to Linux I highly suggest that you throw out the myraid of partition options. You only need two partitions. Equate "swap" to Window's Page File. Equate "/" to C:\ but in realistic non-Windows but more proper talk-it's the root directory. Install everything on the root directory including GRUB. Don't use FAT32 for GRUB, XOSL should be able to read the Linux partition to see GRUB, if it can't then it's not a true boot manager. I have already addressed the size of the "swap" partition. For the root partition use whatever makes the most sense for the amount of utilities you use. I have found 10Gig to be very generous for a person new to Linux. For distros that only require 1 CD to install, try 5Gig or less. For distros that use a DVD, try 10GB. De-formating is not really a term I would use-it's more like re-formating. Most Linux distros will re-format whatever partition you decide to install Linux on. If you are going to shares OSes on the system and one of them are Windows it would be helpful to have a FAT32 for data storage. Do not use FAT32 for program or OS installation. __________________
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10-14-2005, 05:15 PM	#7
TweakHound . Join Date: Feb 2001 Posts: 2,669	With modern distros you only need: swap, /, and /Home (if you want). 1GB is more than enough for a Linux swap file. I use Acronis OS Selector (part of Disk Director). It keeps XP and Linux completely out of the loop. Pointreyes is right-on 10GB is perfect for /, gives you plenty of breathing room. Also correct about bootloader. Install it on the same partition as /. __________________ My Blog
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10-14-2005, 05:30 PM	#8
FB Re-Retiring Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MN, USA Posts: 24,834	I have OS selector, maybe i should see how it works. i am limited to 1 drive though on my laptop, no getting around that. looks like i will be using 1Gb for /SWAP and about 7Gb for / that should be more than enough i think. __________________ Bye Bye ABXZone.....Rest In Peace.
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10-14-2005, 06:03 PM	#9
pepsi_max2k Registered User Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 103	just found a site that actually explains the whole install/partitioning thing for mandrake/mandriva. well worth a read: http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/install.html so now i'm thinking ntfs formatted E: drive gets turned into: hda5 / (ext3) ~10GB hda6 swap (linux swap) ~2gigs hda7 /home (ext3) ~20gigs hda8 /mnt/win_d (fat32) ~20gigs and another 250meg fat32 (/boot?) for xosl. no idea if the hda numbers are right but i'm sure it don't matter. Last edited by pepsi_max2k : 10-15-2005 at 05:32 AM.
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10-16-2005, 10:23 AM	#11
sorrow 010011100100100101001110 Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Virginia Posts: 1,243	From a system admin point of view, i would have to say the main point of seperate partitions is : 1. a filled up partition won't crash your system 2. its easier to repair say /root then haveing to repair all of them (like Fish says) 3. easily expand where needed, and no need to let space go to waste. __________________ A64 X2 4800+ (Toledo) A8N32-SLI-Deluxe PQI 2x1gb (2.5/4/4/8/1T) WD 150gb 10,000rpm Raptor eVGA 8800GTX Asus Xonar DX Thermaltake PurePower 560w Gigabyte Aurora Case Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW 24" LCD My site in progress: http://www.average-geek.com
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11-05-2005, 12:43 PM	#12
pepsi_max2k Registered User Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 103	so i've tried out mandriva 2006 and suse 10.0 now. mandriva install was simple, shouldn't have worried about all the partitioning stuff. i just halved the size of the 1st partition on my 2nd drive and formatted it as FAT32, then left the rest unallocated. mandriva just auto configured everything, giving me a "/" about 7 gig, "/swap" about 1 gig and "/home" in whatever was left. install was easy peasy. but the using it was crazy. for some reason it was running really slow, KAT desktop search constantly kept crashing, had a horrible time trying to install anything (could linux installs be any harder?!?). anyway i think i messed it up a bit and needed to reinstall... got a copy of suse 10.0, and decided to give it a try. install was fine again, got rid of the /home directory and just left a 1 gig "/swap" and "/". much better than mandriva, runs much smoother than mandriva did and had most stuff installed that i wanted. still have a couple of problems with it, lilo and grub won't boot windows (they did with mandriva) and it wounldn't recognize my second ethernet port and xmms wouldn't play mp3s by default, but after a few hours downloading i managed to sort the mp3 stuff out. but still, installing stuff on linux sucks. download tar.gz, configure, get error, find an rpm library, install, configure tar.gz again, get error, find more rpm libraries, configure tar.gz again, make, get error, change path variables, make again, get error, make again, error mystereously appears, make install, try to start program, reboot, try to start program again, look for program execution files... give up after 4 hours trying to install a simple media player plugin and decide .exe's ain't so bad afterall... i'm kinda getting the hang of it though.
(Offline)

11-16-2005, 01:04 PM	#14
pepsi_max2k Registered User Join Date: Feb 2004 Posts: 103	hmm, yeah, i'm starting to get the hang of the whole rpm thing... as for the boot loader, where do i start. i guess at the part where a total noob tries to configure the bootloader file thinking "what's the worst one digit can do".... que bios post... "L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99".... :eek: hmmm... anyway, after a bit of panic, a mess about trying to install mandrake again and failing, repair stuff from the suse boot disc (involving repairs to virtually everything bar the bootloader which it refused to touch), i finally tried the "boot installed OS" option and it's fine, well, cept ithe repair bit did something funny to the drives and i can't access one of my windows partions from suse. eh well. maybe i'll figure out how to boot windows from the bootloader someday, for now i'm happy enough having the bootloader on a floppy and just removing the floppy to boot from windows
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