Comments on: A Quick Guide to Linux Partition Schemes

By: TEN

TEN — Sun, 16 May 2010 18:22:23 +0000

To second jhansonxi's comment on the size of /boot, over the lifetime of an LTS (3-5 years) the various kernel updates alone tend to fill up 200-300 megs, so while (half) a gig may look somewhat oversized now, I had come to regret smaller /boot partitions when I couldn't physically access the machine to clean them up later on.

Moreover, in an age of D(igital)TV, /var has to hold the video recordings from a VDR (cf. MythTV in the U.S.) which require up to 2 gigabytes per hour even in Standard Definition (let alone FullHD), as well as various temporary files while mastering DVDs etc., print and (unless in /home) mail spools, many of which tend to grow and should survive the transition to the next release of your OS a few years down the line.

By: dawgdoc

dawgdoc — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:50:07 +0000

Another option when using a separate /home with multiple distros is to have different usernames on each distro. This will prevent the config files from being affected. I routinely keep data files on a separate partition, this is something I did even before being introduced to linux.

By: dawgdoc

dawgdoc — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:50:00 +0000

By: How to Install and Run Slackware 13 – Make Tech Easier

How to Install and Run Slackware 13 – Make Tech Easier — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:01:52 +0000

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By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:32:23 +0000

Think the comments about Windows are not true anymore if they ever were true (I installed Win98 SE into a partition I built with Debian for example once).
Very many OEM installs have utility or recovery partitions installed before Windows. Personally Installed Win7 into a logical partition without bother.
Those comments about “wiping” things out, probably concern boot loader; Windows does seem to like being in active partition for Suspend RAM & Hibernate. Never had any bother using GRUB as main boot loader on 2nd disk.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:32:00 +0000

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:27:34 +0000

There’s more reasons to partition than “keep a limit on space used”.
You increase system robustness & availability, reduce fsck(8) times. Avoid scattering of related files (and fragments of large files) over huge area of disk. Allow /tmp & /var to be kept mostly empty. Choose a different filesystem type specially suited or tweaked options eg) xfs, ext4, tmpfs etc.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:27:00 +0000

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:27:00 +0000

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:31:06 +0000

Thanks for the link

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:31:00 +0000

Thanks for the link

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:30:11 +0000

As I have had issues with config file version differences, I can see the reasoning behind that approach. Often if I know I’m moving to a distro with major differences in design or package versions I’ll do something similar to what you suggest and leave the home in / but keep the old files mounted elsewhere.

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:30:00 +0000

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:27:11 +0000

I hadn’t considered the security perspective to a /tmp partition, thanks!

By: Joshua Price

Joshua Price — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:27:00 +0000

I hadn’t considered the security perspective to a /tmp partition, thanks!

By: Marco

Marco — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:10:00 +0000

For multi boot or multi distro, sharing /home or /boot partition is tricky! It’s much easier to make a Data partition mounted under /mnt, and a Main Bootloader partition, which can present a unified main boot menu pointing to each individual distro/OS’s bootloader inside their OS partition…
check out http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7343886

By: Marco

Marco — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:10:00 +0000

By: Anton

Anton — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:45:37 +0000

You forgot one of the most import partitions – /tmp

There are many security issues that occur if you have /tmp in the same partition as the base system. Creating a separate partition for /tmp is probably more important than one for /usr.

By: Anton

Anton — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:45:00 +0000

You forgot one of the most import partitions – /tmp

There are many security issues that occur if you have /tmp in the same partition as the base system. Creating a separate partition for /tmp is probably more important than one for /usr.

By: How To: Reinstall GRUB2 | Naman Zone

How To: Reinstall GRUB2 | Naman Zone — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:37:28 +0000

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