choosing a distro and version

[Janina Sajka]

I don't know about the wisdom of putting swap in hda1. Sounds unusual to 
me, put I don't know that there's actually anything wrong with that. I 
just have never seen that.

Also, it's not your /root -- but your / partition which is the root. 1.5 
gB is undoubtedly large--try 500 mB or even less. I get away with about 
256 mB these days. Essentially, make this bigger if it includes /var, and 
less if /var is a separate partition, and less if /var will have 
relatively little to do--no ftp, no web, only your mail, etc.

Your note does not speak of /usr. That is very important, and will take at 
least 1 gB if you install nothing from X, and about 3.5 gB if you install 
everything in the RH 7.2 distribution.

My advice is to let diskdruid figure out where to put things. It's good at 
that. Just specify the sizes and mount points. The term "Mount points," by 
the way,  is linux speak for things like /, and /usr, and /home, etc.


 On Sat, 23 Feb 2002, Ed Barnes wrote:

> Ral and list, thanks for all your quick and interesting responses since I
> joined this list.
> 
> To update, I changed my mind and downloaded the isoes for Red Hat 7.2 so
> will now use it as opposed to using 7.0 which I said I would do in a
> previous message.
> 
> Ral, I found your partitioning ideas very helpful.
> 
> If anyone's wondering, I chose Red Hat over Debian or Slackware due to the
> fact I know more Red Hat users locally and I figure that this will be
> advantageous.
> I also figure that considering that Red Hat has a reputation for being one
> of the easier distroes for newbies to get going that it's best for me to
> start with this one.
> 
> Now on to the partitions.
> I have quoted selectively to make my message easier to follow.
> 
> /dev/hda 2.0 gig
> 
> /dev/hda1 swap 256 mbytes
> As the box only has 64 mb of ram in it and I remember reading somewhere that
> swap partitions should be two times ram, is this correct, and has swap file
> sizing conventions changed as Linux releases have.
> Also, is the usage of a swap partition under Linux similar to the usage of a
> swap file under Windows NT/2000 with regard to what each does respectively.
> Reason I ask this is that it would logically follow if my conclusions are
> correct that the larger the swap file the better the chances one would have
> for speeding up the boxes performance.
> 
> /dev/hda2 root 1.5 gbytes
> 
> /dev/hda3 /var remaining mbytes
> I also read that by default that mail and ftp and web files are placed here
> so wouldn't it be a bit better to subtract a little from the root partition
> and donate that space to /var.
> 
> Due to the fact that I would be the only real user and any other users
> created would be for experimentation purposes limiting the requirement of a
> real large /home partition.
> wouldn't it be better if I placed the swap partition on /dev/hdb.
> 
> Then, /dev/hda would have more room to dedicate to route and var partitions?
> 
> Any and all thoughts welcome.
> Thanks much all.
> 
> By the time I get my machine up with the number of questions and senarios
> I'm throwing toward you folks for evaluation and guidance if you ever run
> into me somewhere I'll have alot of coffee and or beer to buy as an
> expression of gratitude.
> 
> Talk to all later.
> 
> Ed
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Raul A. Gallegos" <raul at asmodean.net>
> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:19 PM
> Subject: Re: choosing a distro and version
> 
> 
> Hi there.  You can be sure we don't get tired of new list members.  At
> least I don't.  Anyway, as to your question on which distro to start off
> with my approach was like this:
> 
> Slackware, Debian, Redhat, in that order.  With Slackware I had to do
> the most configuring to personalize it.  I like it though and can learn
> the best that way so that is why I went that route.  Debian was my
> second style of distro to learn and it has an awesome package manager
> called apt which to me is the best so far compared to all the other
> distros.  Redhat is widely used and is very good as well and does do a
> lot of nice things for you and can be very easy for the newby.  Again,
> depending on how you like to learn and how you like things being done
> automatically will make a difference on which one you go with first.
> 
> Your ideas on partitioning the hard drives are pretty good.  If you have
> 2 physical drives what I would suggest is the following:
> 
> /dev/hda 2.0 gig
> /dev/hda1 swap 256 mbytes
> /dev/hda2 root 1.5 gbytes
> /dev/hda3 /var remaining mbytes
> 
> /dev/hdb 1.66 gig
> /dev/hdb1 /home
> 
> But again, depending on what you want to do it may vary.
> 
> I have a linux server with 2 nics in it.  eth0 the outside nic is the
> one that has the outside Internet connection.  My dsl in this case.
> eth1 is the inside one and I have a dhcp server on this so that I can
> plug in my laptop which I use at work and at home without having to
> change network settings.  I also have 2 other computers inside the
> network as well as my girlfriend's windows box.  All of them are on the
> private network with no need for firewalling software since I use
> iptables on the server itself.
> 
> Hope all this helps and if you do have questions feel free to write me.
> 
> --
> If you are good, you will be assigned all the work.  If you are real
> good, you will get out of it.
> Raul A. Gallegos - http://www.asmodean.net
> 
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> 
> 
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-- 
	
				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

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org