Ext2 IFS for Windows

[Husse]

Ext3 is Ext2 with journaling and as you can't use Linux journaling under Windows (and the other way round for ntfs) there should be no problems. I used it a year and a half ago and it worked (if not perfect)

[Fred]

Death Dream,

Please read my post in the below link.

http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... FS#p102339

If I were you, I would do something like the below:

10 Gig - NTFS - Windows

Linux swap - no more than 2 X your physical RAM. The sum of your physical RAM and swap should not exceed 3.5 GIG. Reduce swap size to make this true.

10 Gig - ext3 - Linux

Rest of the drive - NTFS - Shared

Fred

[Fred]

Death Dream wrote:

I have 2 gigs of memory and twice that is 4gigs and I dropped it down to 3.5 for the swap.

It is the sum of physical RAM and swap that shouldn't exceed 3.5 Gig. so if you have 2 Gig of RAM your swap partition need not be more than 1.5 Gig.

Most games are installed in a folder called /usr/local/games. I believe if I were you I would keep the large NTFS partition you have. Move the usr/local/games folder over to your NTFS partition and put a symlink in usr/local pointing to the games folder on the NTFS partition. All your Linux games would be installed in that folder. You can call that folder something other than games if you wish, to avoid a conflict if needed. Your Windows games could be installed on that same partition in a different folder.

Doing it this way you wouldn't have any potential problems with defraging. Windows could manage that aspect on the NTFS partition and Linux wouldn't care.

Fred

[Fred]

Death Dream,

I have no clue what an attempted Windows defrag would do to a ext partition, but I can't imagine it would be good. I am not sure it would even try since Windows can't see or read Linux partitions natively anyway.

As for the swap thing, I always thought it was double, go figure lol.

This is a general rule of thumb, but there are other considerations too. Most 32 bit kernels are only compiled to recognize a total of 4 Gig. of system memory. Of this 4 Gig., 1 Gig. is reserved for hardware addressing. Most systems will only be able to use 3.2 - 3.5 Gig. Any additional memory will not be seen by the system anyway. The larger the swap partition is the slower it is. The total system memory, RAM plus swap, should not exceed 3.5 Gig. Any more swap would just slow the system down and not be usable anyway.

When you start loading games on your Linux install a folder will be created in /usr/local called games. You could move this folder to your NTFS partition and rename it to let's say Linux_Games. You could then create a symlink in /usr/local called games pointing to the Linux_Games folder on the NTFS partition. Then when you ran or installed another game on linux it would use the Linux_Games folder on the NTFS partition as if it were the actual /usr/local/games folder.

To do that, let's say that the NTFS partition is sda5 and is mounted as sda5 in /media by putting the appropriate line in fstab and creating that folder in /media. If you don't know how to do that let me know and I will show you.

First move your /usr/local/games folder to sda5 and rename it Linux_Games. You will have to this with root privileges.

Then in a terminal:

cd /usr/local

This moves you to the /usr/local folder. The base formula for a symlink is:

ln -sf target_file/foldername symlink_filename

That is a little "L" in the ln

In your case it would be:

sudo ln -sf /media/sda5/Linux_Games games

That's it. You now have a symlink in /usr/local called games that points to your NTFS partition folder called Linux_Games that is used just like it was the real /usr/local/games folder.

Fred

[Fred]

Death Dream,

Sorry I was so slow getting back to you. OK... Let's go through it. To set up your mount point and auto mount on boot, do what I am showing you below. I will use a folder called "Linux_Games" on an NTFS partition on sda5. We will also mount that partition in your /home directory calling it "Storage". You can then easily access that partition from your Linux install. We will also create a symlink to put your game installs on the NTFS partition in the "Linux_Games" (no spaces allowed in this folder name) folder.

In a terminal:

sudo mkdir /media/sda5

mkdir /home/visor/Storage

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

This last command will open the file called /etc/fstab for editing. If you have an entry for your NTFS partition already in this file delete it out. Put the two stanzas I have below at the end of the file, save and exit gedit. Try not to make typos and don't confuse word wrap with returns.

/dev/sda5 /media/sda5 ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0

/dev/sda5 /home/visor/Storage ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0

Ok... you should now reboot. You will find a Folder in your /home directory that gives you access to your NTFS partition called "Storage."

Now we need to move and rename your /usr/local/games folder to your NTFS partition. You can do this from a terminal with the commands:

cd /usr/local

sudo mv games /media/sda5/Linux_Games

Now we can create our symlink for the games folder. We are already in the /usr/local folder so we don't need to cd there.

sudo ln -sf /media/sda5/Linux_Games games

Ok... close the terminal you are done. You should now have everything you need in place to use your NTFS partition for you Linux games. You also have access to your shared folder in your /home directory.

Fred

[Fred]

Death Dream,

First, The folder with the arrow is a symlink. The folder without an arrow is a folder.

It looks like in working with this you have duplicated some stuff. Remove the symlink in /usr/local. I am assuming your game folder is empty, both the one on the NTFS partition and the one in /usr/local. If this is true then erase the Linux_Games folder on the NTFS drive.

You should get back to where you were when you stared to make the symlink. Having only one games folder in /usr/local and no Linux_Games on the NTFS partition.

Now start from scratch making the symlink.

cd /usr/local

sudo mv games /media/sda5/Linux_Games

sudo ln -sf /media/sda5/Linux_Games games

Close terminal.

You should now see a symlink in /usr/local called games, (folder with an arrow).

You should now see a folder on your NTFS partition called Linux_Games. The contents of that folder should be the same as what the original games folder had in it.

I used sda5 as the drive and partition of the NTFS drive. If it is different, you would of course use the appropriate designator.

Fred

Edit: I see you were trying to remove a folder. To remove a folder use rmdir instead of rm.

[Fred]

Death Dream,

You keep wanting to duplicate the games folder. lol

Let me try to explain. You have a folder in /usr/local called games. The mv command I gave you moves that games folder to the NTFS partition and renames it Linux_Games.

The ln command creates a symlink called games in the /usr/local folder pointing to the Linux_Games folder on the NTFS partition. So when /usr/local/games is accessed it sees what is inside the Linux_Games folder on the NTFS partition. It appears to Linux as the /usr/local/games folder, even though it is actually the Linux_Games folder on another partition. You shouldn't create another games folder inside the Linux_Games folder.

I hope that helps some.

Fred

[Fred]

Death Dream,

Looking at your screen shot you have the mv command... that is right.

Then you have the ln command sudo ln -sf /media/sda5/Linux_Games games

Then you have the ln command sudo ln -sf /media/sda5/Linux_Games/games games

This last ln command created another games folder inside of Linux_Games and over wrote the first symlink and is now linking into the games folder in the Linux_Games folder you just created.

Am I wrong in interpreting what I am looking at?

Fred