[SGVLUG] newbie qu: HDD partitions

[David Lawyer]

I would just use one big partition for the whole disk plus the swap
partition if needed.

I've always used one partition except for /boot which I needed in case
my computer failed: Put the HD in an old 486 PC which has a BIOS from
1992 that will only boot from the first 500 + cylinders.  (I've added
enough memory so that it will still boot).  But if I had a newer
backup PC, I would then only need one partition.

The superblock has copies so if it's damaged there should be a backup.
Once the disk starts crashing, the magnetic particles start ruining
all partitions so having certain data in its own partition doesn't
save the data from damage.

The advantage of one partition is that you don't have to go thru all
the trouble of repartitioning if one partition gets filled up.  As far
as logs filling up the disk, nothing is hurt.  A certain amount of
free space is kept in reserve.  As a last resort if something goes
wrong you can use a rescue floppy which contains a Linux OS (or a CD).

On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 04:54:22PM -0700, Jeff Kutz wrote:
> Subj: newbie qu: HDD partitions
> 
> I am going to load Fedora on a Dell Latitude C600 (1 GHz) laptop for a 
> dedicated Linux learn/play computer.  I am going with Fedora because it 
> came with the book Red Hat Linux by Mark G Sobell.
> 
> My question is what would be the smartest way to partition the 20 GB hard 
> drive.  The author talks about partitions but it seems more like 
> subdirectories that he is talking about.  The way I read the book he would 
> have me putting in some half-dozen partitions.  I am coming from the 
> DOS/Windows world.  Am I missing something here in the transition?
> 
> He talks about where I might run into a situation like a DOS attack and I 
> could suddenly get a truly huge collection of log files that would fill up 
> a partition and block other functions that need some disk room to operate.  
> It has been my practice, even in the DOS/Windows world, to create a 
> separate partition for my data files.
> 
> If you are starting from scratch, with a dedicated Linux laptop, how many 
> partitions would you build and what would you establish in each one?  Would 
> I maybe want three partitions, one for data, one for the OS and 
> applications, and one for swap and log files?
> 
> Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> 
			David Lawyer