partitioning

[Janina Sajka]

Well, perhaps not quite.

\first, Red Hat does use a /boot partition. If you want that, 50mB will
indeed be plenty. It might even be excessive. I just check three of my
systems. Two have 6mB, and one has 14mB--the one I have cleaned out
recently.

I have always been perfectly happy with /boot as part of /. . My largest
/ is 500mB, another has 256, and yet another 20. I wouldn't expect more
than 256 is really necessary, unless you're going to keep large mail
inbox files, and not have /var as a separate partition, which it sounds
like you won't.

Let me pause at this point to suggest that if you do plan to develop a
web server, or to run mail for several accounts that might get large
amounts of mail, if you're going to do something like that, a separate
/var would be a good idea. But, I don't think that's what you're going
to do this time around. So, 256mB, for /, and let /boot just be part of
/ should be more than enough.

500Mb swap is good, but with 256mB RAM, you may never really use it. You
could probably get away without one, even.

You absolutely need more for /usr. Are you planning to install X so that
you'll be ready for GNOME and gnopernicus next year? Then give it at
least 4gB. In fact, to do an "everything" install these days, you need
4.6gB, so 5 isgB is safer. Of course, you could go through and deselect
all the KDE packages. I'm not sure how much that will gain, but a fair
amount, anyway. Certainly, you will have to do something like that if
you make /usr 4gB, because "everything" won't fit.

The rest, whatever is left, can be /home, but let it be ext3. You have
another drive in this system which has Windows. Linux will be able to
mount that drive, so you can certainly put anything you want to see from
both environments there. If you really want all your user data to also
be visible from Windows, /however, then go ahead and make home vfat.

You might want to consider a separate /usr/local, perhaps 500mB, perhaps
1gB. This is where you put programs you compile. The reason for having
it separate from /usr is to let you keep it when next you install.
You'll always overwrite /usr when you do a fresh install, but there's
usually no reason to overwrite /usr/local.




Glenn Ervin writes:
> From: "Glenn Ervin" <glennervin at cableone.net>
> 
> Okay, I think I am ready to try, and I am going to offer a partitioning
> scenario, and please let me know if this does make or not make sense:
> 8 GB drive:
> /boot 50 MB
> /swap 500 MB (256 MB ram)
> /root 4 GB
> /usr approximately 1.7 MB
> /home approximately the same as /usr
> Also, I think the documentation said one of the partitions should be
> configured as VFAT, so I can access some files from windows/DOS, and should
> this be the partition: /home?
> Thanks.
> 
> "Live long and prosper",
> O. Glenn Ervin (Lenny)
> N0YJV
> Northeast Nebraska
> e-mail:
> glennervin at cableone.net
> The above address can also be found on MSM.
> or my work e-mail:
> gErvin at ncbvi.state.ne.us
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175