Partitions and install problem

1999-04-03 Thread Stefan Langerman

Hi,

When I installed hamm some time ago, I had the following problem:
apparently, dselect downloads everything before installing. Having only
one partition, and not too big (400Mb), at some point, it ran out of
space, and I just couldn't do anything anymore. Luckily, I had some free
space on the old DOS partition, which I reduced and added a new partition,
and I forced dselect to download its stuff on there. It worked!

I just decided  to re-install a whole new slink from scratch, and since I
am doing that, I might as well re-partition the HD. Now, I have about
600Mb total, and I would like to keep it all in one big partition (just
because it's kinda more flexible.. I don't know how much space users are
gonna need and stuff...), but I'm afraid the same problem might happen.
Does anybody know if the new installer is being more clever about this,
and if not, what is the right strategy.

Am I being crazy or immoral wanting only one partition? most Faqs and docs
I read about it say you should always make a few partitions.

Is there a tool for unix fs which allows to re-partition without
destroying everything (reducing a big one safely)?

Thanks a lot,

Stefan.


Re: Partitions and install problem

1999-04-03 Thread Randy Edwards
 Am I being crazy or immoral wanting only one partition? most Faqs and docs
 I read about it say you should always make a few partitions.

   Using multiple partitions gives you a great deal of flexibility.  One can
easily add new stuff and reuse the old partitions for something else.  You
also gain a measure of stability -- if one of your partitions gets corrupted
or suffers some catastrophic error you lose only a partition and not the whole
system.  But with that said, no, you're not crazy.  I've installed newbies'
machines and more or less dedicated machines on one large partition...

   There are tools to let you repartition -- partition magic being the most
famous of them.  As far as repartitioning without losing data and having a
meaure of safety, good luck. :-)

-- 
 Regards,  | Debian GNU/Linux - http://www.debian.org - More software than
 . | *any* distribution, rock solid reliability, quality control,
 Randy | seamless upgrades via ftp or CD-ROM, strict filesystem layout
   | and adherence to standards, and militantly 100% FREE Linux!