Thanks for the help so far, Chris.
Does an install really need formatting to be clean? I remember when I
switched to MDK7.2 from 7.1 I simply deleted everything on my Linux
partition save /home and then ran Drakx.
So if partitioning is really better, can someone please suggest what I
should do with my system? I have two drives, one 11.2GB and one 2.4GB.
The 11.2GB is much faster than the 2.4GB and is set on the primary
(master) IDE channel, whereas the 2.4GB is a secondary master. I need
about 3GB for Windows (I only use it nowadays to play the occasional
game :-)), but Linux is my priority. Swap is not much of a priority,
as I have 256MB of RAM and I only use swap when either something's
crashed or if I'm using VMware. I currently have 200MB of Swap and it
appears to suit my needs well (I regularly check my usage with "free
-m"). I have a CD-burner on the secondary IDE channel, so I don't want
to burden this channel with much hard drive traffic (so I can prevent
coasters). A major reason for the repartitioning is to switch to
ReiserFS from Ext2 and thus speed up my drive performance so I can
burn without errors.
Thanks in advance.
On Mon, 5 Feb 2001 02:50, Christopher Molnar wrote:
> I can answer that in one word - "Updates".
>
> It is far easier and safer to do a clean install than to do an
> update. Part of the clean full install includes formatting. For
> myself that would be deadly as my /home partition has a lot of
> source code, documents, etc. So that is partitioned.
>
> Also, wou will see a performance hit the larger the drive gets.
> IMHO.
>
> Hope that helps,
> -Chris
>
> On Sunday 04 February 2001 09:24, Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
> > Can someone please tell me the point of having several partitions
> > on the same drive for one GNU/Linux installation? I can't imagine
> > that it would be much faster, and there is not really much risk of
> > losing data with only one partition, especially with new
> > filesystems like ReiserFS. I simply use one partition for
> > everything, and I have had no problems whatsoever. If I had
> > several partitions I would be wasting space since /boot, / and
> > other partitions would not be full, and so would be robbing space
> > from /home.
> >
> > Someone correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm interested in
> > repartitioning my drive to give more room to Linux (about 9GB in
> > total, excluding Swap).
> >
> > On Sun, 4 Feb 2001 18:48, Christopher Molnar wrote:
> > > On Saturday 03 February 2001 17:57, Richard T. Waters wrote:
> > > > Whenever a new release comes out I have always been in the
> > > > habit of doing a full install, rather than an upgrade.
> > >
> > > A person after my own heart! Of course doing a backup first of
> > > all your data is a good idea!
> > >
> > > > Of course this entails some backing up and restoring of
> > > > information.
> > >
> > > Yup!
> > >
> > > > I have seen some discussions regarding how many partitions is
> > > > best for an install, and I notice there are (as usual)
> > > > varying opinions.
> > > >
> > > > Is there a general guideline I can follow. Do I basically
> > > > want to set up /; /boot and /usr? What should be a good
> > > > rule of thumb for allocating space for the various partitions?
> > >
> > > I teach some classes for new Linux users. Here is what I tell
> > > them for a 5 Gig drive. (OK, I know I am about to be corrected,
> > > flamed, etc for this but I can handle it [sniff] - just remember
> > > this is a general suggestion and is not written in stone).
> > >
> > > Do NOT let the installer auto-partition. I have a different
> > > opinion about putting /var onto it's own partition. Don't.
> > >
> > > These are in order on how I recommend creating on a 5 gig drive:
> > > /boot = 64 meg
> > > Swap = 2 times the amount of physical memory in your machine.
> > > More if a server (probably 4 times).
> > > / = 3.5 Gig
> > > /home = remainder of all drive space.
> > >
> > > This seems to let them do a full development install and it
> > > works.
> > >
> > > (OK, let me have it!). Anyways, forgive me mailing list Gods,
> > > but if you are near New Haven, CT USA check out the Mandrake
> > > Campus courses at: http://www.innovationsw.com/training.
> > > -Chris
> > >
> > > > Christopher Molnar wrote:
> > > > > 7.3 ???? NO, No, no.....
> > > > >
> > > > > 8.0 ---- YES, Yes, yes!
> > > > >
> > > > > Seriously, this will be a lot of major enhancements, this
> > > > > won't be 7.3. And give it a few more months. I am not sure
> > > > > if you already subscribe, but if you find the list Cooker
> > > > > Changelog you can watch the progress.
> > > > >
> > > > > -Chris
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ----------------------------------------
--
Sridhar Dhanapalan.
"There are two major products that come from Berkeley:
LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
-- Jeremy S. Anderson
