[ale] new to linux, question about partitioning

Jeff Hubbs hbbs at comcast.net
Fri Aug 4 17:06:02 EDT 2006


250GB is huge, as you've probably surmised.  If you want to be able to
switch between several distros, you certainly can.  Here's how I'd set
up for five distros:

hda1  64MB    /boot
hda2  64MB    false boot
hda3   (extended - rest of drive)
hda5   24GB    / for Distro 1 (this is the first logical partition -
hda4 is skipped)
hda6   24GB    / for Distro 2
hda7   24GB    / for Distro 3
hda8   24GB    / for Distro 4
hda9   24GB    / for Distro 5
hda10 swap (larger of 2GB or 2 times RAM)
hda11 .5GB    false home
hda12 ??GB    /home

The real trick here is managing both /home and /boot.  When you install
the first one, use hda12 and hda1, respectively, for each.  Use Grub and
not LILO.  For subsequent distros, use hda11 and hda2 for /home and
/boot.  Post-installation, examine what got painted into the "false
home" and "false boot" and integrate those contents into the *real* home
and boot. 

For the real /boot, you'd move the new distro's kernel, initrd, etc.
over and modify grub.conf (using the new distro's grub.conf as a guide)
to give you a choice to pick the corresponding kernel, initrd, and root
partition.  I have a machine here with a basic Debian distribution on it
whose only real purpose is to provide a way to install or modify a
Gentoo distribution; the Grub menu that appears at boot allows me to
choose between the two.

Dealing with /home would probably be tricker because differing versions
of common apps (firefox, thunderbird, openoffice) that leave data/config
directories under ~ (e.g., .mozilla, .thunderbird) may break horribly
when faced with data/config directories from a preceding or succeeding
version of the app.  If everything worked beautifully, you could simply
have one /home for all the distros, but if it didn't, you'd be forced to
have multiple /homes, play some kind of symlink squaredance, etc.

All the distros can use the same swap partition happily.

- Jeff

Step wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm (mostly) brand new to Linux, just installed Ubuntu on an old PC a
> few days ago.  :)  I've been watching the list the last few days, and
> hope some of you can offer your opinions:
>
> -I have a 250 GB HD, right now it's all one partition (except for
> /boot and /swap), as that's what someone recommended.  But I suspect I
> will soon want to try other linux distros, and I know I'll want to
> play with postgres, wordpress, as well as several server activities. 
> The main one is to have the box act as a file server for my home
> network, so I can edit / use pictures on my Mac, and share files
> between my window, mac, and linux boxes.  Another big priority is to
> set up a script to regularly back up my pictures, music, data, and
> even settings maybe.
>
> Can I repartition on the fly later?  Do you recommend partitioning
> now, before I get Ubuntu too set up?
>
> Any other advice for a newbie?  Thanks all for your time.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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