Disk Partitioning questions

[Felix Miata]

On 2008/01/02 16:19 (GMT-0800) Daniel B. Thurman apparently typed:

> I have finally gotten a SATA 300GB HD and plan to multiboot w2k, XP, and Fedora.

> The question is, what is the best way to partition the drive?

That is like asking what is the best color or who is the best actress or what
is the best distro. :-p

> What I plan so far is:

> p1: w2k,    25GB
> p2:  XP,    25GB
> p3: /boot, 100MB
> p4: Extended
>     /,     100GB
>     /app1,  50GB
>     /app2,  50GB
>     /app3, rest of available space minus swap
>     swap     2GB

Without knowing your goals, I can't say there's anything particularly good or
bad about your plan, but there are some considerations you might want to
think about before finalizing your plan.

1-The fastest place on most disks is the start, while the slowest is usually
the end. Someplace at or near the fastest part is a better location than the
slowest for the home of your swap.

2-The fastest part of your disk is the best place for the most used parts. If
most of your time will be spent in Fedora, don't put doz in the first 50G.
Doz only needs 40MB or so for boot files on a primary. The rest of it/them
can go at the slow end. Boot/init works the same way in doz as in Linux. C:
is its /boot partition, and D:, E: or whatever can be its /. Its installers
will automatically configure its loader with a menu to choose between
multiple doz installations if required, as W2K & WXP are quite happy to share
their "/boot" (C:) partition.

3-Doing all partitioning before starting any OS installation gives you more
time to think about what you are doing, and doing so with one single
partitioning tool that can be used regardless of any ability at any time to
boot any particular already installed OS can give you more flexibility when
problems arise.

4-Deciding in advance how the entire disk should be partitioned reduces your
options down the road. Disks today are so large that unless your main use of
the puter is to accumulated large files, it makes sense to reserve some
freespace for things you've not yet thought about.

5-Read through the following for some general info about boot loaders and
multiboot configuration and installation, including partitioning:
http://en.opensuse.org/Bugs/grub
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/install-doz-after.html
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

> But when I use the F8-LiveCD and custom partitioning gui,
> I cannot see where I can create the extended filesystem
> in p4 before I can create the logical drives of /, /app1,
> /app2, and /app3?

The creation of the first logical partition creates the extended. An extended
is a logical construct built from the sum of existing logical partition(s).
Without any existing logical, any partitioning tool that claims an extended
does exist is simply telling you something some people like to hear.

> Is it sufficient to simply not choose the 'Force to be a
> primary partition' for p4?

Most likely. I never use any Linux installer's partitioning tool for
multiboot systems, preferring to do everything in advance with a cross
platform tool, so can only surmise that the converse as default is why that
option even exists.
-- 
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/