Considerations before you install

[DragonTrainer]

Hi everybody.

This is my first post in a linux-help forum, but I want to be sure of what I'm about to do.
I've read carefully this guide. I have installed Mint in a very Linux-unfriendly laptop, and even if the path was rough, I was able to get most of my devices working -even a non-Linux USB wireless device, thanks to ndiswrapper.

But even I've learned to use Linux on Ubuntu 6.06, 6.10, Mint Daryna and -after a return to Windows- Gloria, I still leave various things by default... and that included using a single partition for all the OS and swap.

Now I want to get rid of Windows. Apart to my original XP copy- this laptop is kinda old- I have MicroXP if I need to use any Windows program. I want to reinstall Mint, but this time controlling exactly everything. In the other hand, I'm a person that when the system is installed starts to experiment with weird things 'til the system breaks and needs reinstalling. That's where I want to reach.

First than anything, everytime I need to reinstall a Linux distro, installing the drivers is annoying. Mostly because my monitor isn't well detected, the wifi doesn't works, the tablet doesn't work, and such, and I have to reinstall all drivers from nothing. In Windows I had automatic installers, but of course they're useless on Mint.

If I create a partition for /etc, Could I eventually reformat/install Mint (on /) in the future without having to reinstall all drivers?
Second question. My laptop hasn't a lot of RAM. I have 704 MB RAM, so, how much I need a swap partition? I have a 40GB (37.8 GB in reality) hard disk.
I ask, because based in what I've read here, the partitions I planned could be:

12 GB /
24 MB /etc
26 GB /home
800 MB swap

Is that okay? Or I should try something different?
(Oh, the 24 MB for /etc are based in what I saw- in this moment my /etc folder its 8.5 MB)

Is that. Sorry if my question sounds dumb :/ Just I want to grab the best performance for this machine, that's a bit small for today's standards, using gnome (the only desktop environment from the various I tried, that I liked).

[Fred]

DragonTrainer,

Greetings and salutations sir. A couple of things come to mind that might help you.

I am going to make a suggestion that you may not have thought of that would more easily solve your problem of reinstalls of the same version of Mint.

Partitioning:

sda1 1 Gig - swap - Primary - swap partition
sda2 11 Gig. - / - Primary - ext3 partition
sda3 Rest of drive - Extended partition
sda5 Rest of drive - Data - Logical - ext3 partition

Now before you say, "no way," read a little further.

This should put approximately 28 Gig in your data partition. My math comes out different than yours for a 40 Gig drive. If you don't have too much data you should have space to backup your entire install, except for the data. Your customized install will probably not exceed 6 or 7 Gig. if you don't load it up with games or try to run a Virtual machine.

Use gparted, it is located in the menu of the live cd, and make your partitions. Then start the installer and choose "manual" when you get to the partitioning part. All you have to do at this point is assign your pre-made partitions to / and swap from the menu and continue. Once you have made your install, boot into it, open a terminal and type: (with your user name of course)

mkdir /home/fred/Data

sudo su

echo "/dev/sd5 /home/fred/Data ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2" >> /etc/fstab

This will create a mount point for your Data partition and set it so it will automatically mount on start up. Restart your computer and you should find your data partition in your /home.

Now, for your reinstall issue. This won't help you much as far as upgrading to another version but it will enable you to reinstall the same system you have backed up, in case you break it.

Open a terminal and type:

mkdir /home/fred/Data/Backup

This will make a folder on your Data partition for your backup. Ok... now restart your system with the Mint live cd in the drive and boot to the desktop. Make sure sda2 and sda5 are mounted and accessible from the live cd. I don't know what they might be called in /media, as it seems to change from version to version. You can tell what they are by the contents though. I am going to assume they will be called "disk2" / , and "disk5" Data, but you may have to correct that if it is not that way in your version. Open a terminal and type:

sudo su

rsync -ar --progress --delete --timeout=120 /media/disk2/ /media/disk5/Backup

When it is finished close the terminal and reboot into your hard drive install. Look in your home, in your Data folder and open the Backup folder. You should find an exact copy of your install, less any data you may have in the Data partition.

As you customize your install you can run your backup again from the live cd to capture your changes. It will run much faster after the first time as it only transfers the changes, not the whole install again.

If/when the time comes that you have broken your install and you want to go back to like it was the last time you backed up, load the live cd again. Make sure your partitions are mounted, open a terminal and type.

sudo su

rsync -ar --progress --delete --timeout=120 /media/disk5/Backup/ /media/disk2

Close the terminal when it is finished and reboot into the hard drive install. You should be back to where you were the last time you ran the backup command.

We could compress the backup if you needed the space but I like to leave it un-compressed so I can refer to a specific file if need be.

There are of course other solutions but this would be my choice if you have the space and I understand what you are trying to accomplish.

Fred

[DragonTrainer]

Fred,

Thank you for your answer, I was reading it, and I started to think in the use I give to the machine. Your idea, exactly as you posted it, isn't suitable in my case, but with a little modification, I could apply it in a different way.

Before anything, I dont know if my personal case should deserve a new thread. If is, tell me and I'll repost it for avoiding spamming this one.

In this exact moment, this is my (disordered) partition system.



The first unallocated 7.8 MB were left there by Windows setup. I dont know why, but it I put the boot zone at the exact beginning, Windows doesn't boot up. (with Linux the problem doesn't exists- I noticed that when I tried Debian).
The NTFS partition (mounted on /media/disk-1) is the Windows partition. I have 8 GB on there, but for what I have installed on it (MicroXP, Macromedia Flash 8, AIMP, K-Meleon + essential drivers), I think is much.
The following is my / partition, in which there's all the Linux filesystem (/home included). You see 12.27 GB used, but in reality, is less than that, because I have 4 GB from a couple of torrents I've downloaded (and there's still 700 MB of downloading to complete), and lots of downloads on /home/victor/Downloads. I'll do all the formatting and such when torrents are done.
Swap, no need to description.
That fat32 partition (I dont know why it's labeled as boot, btw, I noticed it now that I wanted to check my current partition configuration), has all the data I could consider important. Has my music, videos, programming codes, a mirror of my website (I update it weekly), games and such. Is fat32 because I needed access to it from Windows too.

Now, you can see that the partitions are almost full. When I format I plan to have my music, some information, and a small 3~4 GB virtual machine with MicroXP. The problem goes to the fact that soon I start to fill the machine with files, downloading huge packages, or when I go to a friends's house, as example, when we modify things, videos for the university, things like that. Short tale, I use the machine and in a lot of situations my hard disks are occupied at 90% or more. That's why a backup into the computer could be unsuitable or space occupying.

(Fun fact: When I received this laptop the very first thing I did was deleting the backup partition for using it with my data).

But there's a possibility. Not in this moment, soon (im poor) I plan to buy one of those cheap 4GB USB drive. The same idea of a backup could be applied to there; making the copy to the USB drive. That could help me with the reinstallation in the future, and to have that couple of GB extra (that in a moment becomes super important).

In general, my laptop is super multiuse, depending of my mood and patience, and I can say I've used it for anything, since listening to music, to playing OpenArena (when I had Windows- on Linux, it doesn't run). The max use I give to it -apart to the normal websurfing/music/messaging- is drawing. That's why I have Gimp, Inkscape, MyPaint (I could make a tutorial for installing it), GNU Paint, etc. Installing software isn't the thing that worries me- indeed, sometimes due to that I like to start again-, the thing that worries me are the drivers.

Thank you for the suggestion, and even if I'll dont apply it exactly as you told me -apart to the fact that possibly I'll update to Mint 8 when it's released-, I'll definitely use the idea. Thank you for your time too, is widely appreciated.

D-T

PS: Sorry for my bad english; I speak spanish.

[Fred]

DragonTrainer,

Yes, I see what you are talking about. You really won't have the space to do what I was suggesting without being cramped for space. You might look at using "remaster" and saving your system to a cd as a backup. Check out the thread below. Be sure and unmount your Data partition before you run the "remaster" program on your install. A few have had problems with it but most have been happy with the results.

viewtopic.php?f=90&t=27426&start=0

It is a long thread but it makes a good example of someone actually using it.

Fred

[DragonTrainer]

I'll give an eye to it. Thank you again. c:

[mzsade]

Hi, I used to have a Windows partition of 16 GB which i removed and reformatted as ext 3 hoping to use it as a data partition. But i cannot copy anything into it, cannot open one locked Lost+folder in it, it's just lying there at the start of my HDD, being of no use. Is there a way to reclaim this space? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[mzsade]

Well, i did it, killed two birds... reclaimed the 16 gigs by installing Gloria and a 1.45 gig swap on it. Time to bid adieu to my trusty Intrepid. Unlike Jaunty i could install my Nvidia drivers directly from synaptic and doing a sudo nvidia-xconfig. In Jaunty i had to install the nvidia related packages from the terminal. I am leaning towards Mint already.

[zakry3323]

That's so much for the info! I had never considered that the physical placement of partitions could make a noticable difference in read/write speed!

[nearlydeaf]

Hi,

It seems I've foobar'd my first Mint install (viewtopic.php?f=53&t=31149) and haven't been able to resolve it, so I'm going to reinstall. I've learned alot in this thread and also here (viewtopic.php?p=83999#p83999) but I've got some questions regarding partitioning, dual/tri booting with XP, and multiple users.

Let's say I install two different distros, each in it's own partition (sda 5/6). Then I create another separate partition for User Data (Docs/Music/Pics etc.) (sda7) with symlinks back to /Home in each distro. In this case, is there any advantage to having separate /Home partitions for each distro? I know I probably don't want to share a /Home folder between them since configuration data might get confused. In the case of OS reinstalls/upgrades, I would imagine it would be better to backup only the important configuration files, and restore them to a freshly formatted /Home than to carry the whole of it over from an older version. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Related question: Let's say I also have XP on another partition and I format the User Data partition with NTFS for compatibility. Are there any issues / roadblocks / gotchas that I should be aware of? User permissions came to mind but the limited testing I've done hasn't caused any problems. Other than the security risk of using Windows period, what else could go wrong? Would it be better to keep separate versions of those docs within Windows and sync them to the User Data partition via a service like SpiderOak or Dropbox?

Lastly, does the addition of multiple users on a machine change the approach to the above in any significant way? Document privacy would be the concern here, especially with a NTFS User Data partition.

A lot to ask, I know, but I'm slowly transferring my family / small office over to Mint and want to make sure I lay out a reasonable pathway so I don't have to reinvent the wheel in 6 months.

Many thanks in advance.

[motorhead kaze]

Thank you Fred! (Wish I read this a long time ago)

[Arathas]

So I am going to do my first dual boot install of mint sometime this week and had a few partitioning questions on how would be best to set it up.

The dual boot will be XP professional and Mint 7. I have 4 gigs of ram and a 250 gig HDD and a second 1 TB HDD. Because of seek times and spin speeds I was planning on installing both OSes on the 250 GB with partitions as follows.

/swap 1 GB
/ 5 GB
/home 50 GB
/opt 2 GB
/srv 4 GB
/var 2 GB
XP install Partition 20 GB
Both the remainder of the 250 and all of the 1TB formatted as NTFS for shared data.

Just wanted to see if anyone had some suggestions on setting up a dual boot in this fashion as this is my first time setting up a proper dual boot. With the partitions set up this way I am hoping to keep my data isolated from the Boot partitions so that when I reinstall either OS or choose to upgrade etc. I could do so without formating all of my 250 gig HDD and not lose so much data.

[Fred]

Arathas,

Welcome to the Linux Mint forum. It looks as if you have been doing some homework.

I am assuming this is a desktop and you will be using the 32 bit version of Mint. If not correct me.

In you have 4 Gig of RAM you will never have to go to swap. The address space for 32 bit systems is 4 Gig max., and you have that in RAM alone. You only need a swap partition because Linux expects to have one. The swap partition is currently in the prime, fastest part of the drive. I would move it farther down the partition table and make it much smaller, since it will never be used anyway.

I would put Windows on the first partition for two reasons. First, Windows wants to be there. You will have fewer problems in the future with it there. Secondly, this is the fastest part of the drive. Windows needs all the help it can get in the speed category, especially after it gets loaded up with garbage, which it will inevitability do over time.

If it were me I would reduce the size of the / partition some. 10 -12 Gig is more than adequate for a desktop. It is unlikely that your / partition will ever grow to more than 6 or 7 Gig.. Linux doesn't get bloated over time the way Windows does. Some growth will occur, but not like you are used to with Windows.

Suggested changes to your posted partitions:

sda1 Windows 20-30 Gig. NTFS primary partition
sda2 ...... / ...... 10-12 Gig. ext3 .. primary partition
sda3 .. swap ... 64 MB .... swap . primary partition
... sda4 ... rest of drive .... extended partition
sda5 . /home .. 50 Gig. .... ext3 .. logical partition
sda6 Shared remainder . NTFS logical partition

If you are going to use the 64 bit version increase your swap size to 1 Gig. It will still be unlikely that you will use this swap but it will be possible.

Good luck.

Fred

[Unexpected Tiger]

Hi, this is all really useful. I'm a little unclear what's supposed to go in the / partition. Is is just the Linux system files, or is it programs like OpenOffice and whatnot as well? Is there a Linux equivalent of all the crappy Temp files that eat up your space in Windows, and if so where are they put? Thanks..

[Muzer]

/ is where everything goes. It is like C:

/home is user files. It is like C:\Documents and Settings

/tmp is temporary files. This is sometimes mounted as a virtual filesystem in RAM. It is like C:\WINDOWS\Temp

/var is files that change a lot. This is sometimes mounted as a virtual filesystem in RAM. There isn't really a Windows equivalent.

/usr is for non-essential programs and libraries. It is like C:\Program Files

/boot is Linux itself, as well as the bootloader.

/bin is essential programs

/lib is essential libraries

/dev gives files for most of the devices plugged into your computer. It is like the special Windows files NUL, COM0, COM1, etc.

/etc is system-wide configuration.

/media is for storage media. It is like "My Computer".

/mnt is used as a temporary mount moint where putting in it /media will clutter things up.

/opt is for third-party binary packages. It is like C:\Program Files

/root is the Administator (root)'s home directory

/proc is a virtual filesystem with files detailing the operation of the system, some of which you can change.

/sbin is for essential administration programs

/sys is like proc but newer (and different).

[Arathas]

Thanks for the helpful info Fred I will definitely take that into consideration when I set up my partitions a little later this week.

[jesica]

is it better to do the partioning yourself as to mint doing it

[AK49er]

Hello, i am a noob so bear with me here. I am trying to go from XP to Mint 7 i have an HP pavilion m7680n dual core 2.13 Ghz with 2GB ram and 2 233.8 GB hard drives. I have already backed all my files up to an external HDD. I have also changed the partitions on my hard drive (using gparted) as follows.
/dev/sda..............swap 1gb
............../ 12gb
............../pictures 8gb
............../documents 5gb
...............unallocated all the rest of the drive
/dev/sdb..............swap 1gb
............../multimedia all the rest of the drive

my question is when i look at the information of each partition with the exception of the swap partitions it shows some of the partition already being used. Which brings me to my question do i need to select new partition table first before i start changing the partitions or will the mint 7 install wipe xp off my drive for me and if i do need to select new partition table do i stay with msdos in the advanced tab or go with another option ?

thank you in advance.

[jaredfelix]

Hey guys, would it be possible to just use partition editor to create a seperate partition for all my system files and then another for everything else?
When I installed Gloria from the live cd I just let it format and install on my entire drive; I know its probably not a big issue and not worth re-installing, but was wondering if anything else can be done...


--Jared

[emorrp1]

Yep, if you run Partition Editor from the liveCD, you can shrink the system partition, and create a new data partition in the empty space, you can then reboot and deal with actually using the data partition from within your installed system.

[jaredfelix]

This is how my partitions are currently...

+ /dev/sdb1 -- ext3 -- 458.56 GiB
V /dev/sdb2 -- extended -- 7.2 GiB
/dev/sdb5 -- linux-swap -- 7.2 GiB


i cant shrink the swap partition, i think its the same as the sdb2 partion? but i can resize both...
I can only resize sdb1 and creat a new partition.

should I shrink sdb1 to 15 Gib
and have another partiton for the rest of the space? what should the partiton with the rest of the space be called?

god im such a n00b to linux, even though I consider myself to be a computer nerd, Ive only ever used windows...