Considerations before you install

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wayne128

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by wayne128 »

hefff wrote:
Also there isnt anything simple in the installation of linux even mint compared to windows, even when u do clear install. For 16 years i havent read probly even a page bout installing anything in win dos or other and still managed, and i read like 2 books just for a simple install and still cant figure it out :? .
What you could do is

goto linuxmint.com website, get the documentation, like this one
http://www.linuxmint.com/documentation.php

then read the material on documentation,
it should let you install Mint into your hard disk.

If you follow the procedure, and have some issue, then, just open one new topic, usually in newbie section if you are not sure where to put your topic, explain you issues there and hope some kind people will come in and help your issue :mrgreen:
3fRI

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by 3fRI »

Great suggestions! I wish I had thought of partitioning more creatively, which I'll do the next time. Many thanks. :D
user4815162342

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by user4815162342 »

Just had a few questions on my partition plan here, I hope I can get some advice or just nods of approval. I'm not a complete newbie, I've been using linux to run a home file/media server for several years now, but I haven't done a lot of partitioning.

Anyway, I'm setting up a used laptop with a 60GB drive and 2GB of Ram. I'm planning on using it for web browsing, office documents and *programming*... mostly web stuff but I'll probably be doing some Java and Mono as well. I would like to dual boot Mint 11 LXDE with the OEM XP Media Center that's already on it, so that I can use the windows install for testing -- I'm hoping I can keep that running on a single 10GB partition, since I won't be using it to store documents.

Here's my plan -- I'm using Fred's second option, keeping just documents and files (but not all of /home) in a data partition, so it's easier to upgrade without touching them.
Windows: 10 GB
/boot: 500 MB
swap: 2 GB
/: 10 GB
data: whatever's left (around 38 GB, by my calculations)

Questions:
a) Will 10 GB be enough if I'm using it for development? I'm not writing drivers, or rebuilding kernels -- as I said, just Java, Mono and web development, but I'm not certain yet exactly how much space things like Eclipse takes up. There'd also be LAMPP and possible some other database tools, as well as some graphics programs...

b) Will 2 GB swap be okay for hibernating? What I'm concerned about is that when the laptop goes into hibernation, it will write anything in the RAM to the swap space... but what about the stuff that's already in swap at the time of hibernating? Should I make swap 4GB, so I can create a hibernate file that matches the size of the RAM and not get rid of the swap that's there?

c) It's possible that I might be setting up other users on this laptop (the kids might use it for schoolwork), in which case it doesn't make sense to mount the data partition as /home/joe/documents/, or whatever it is. I think it would be simpler in this case to mount it as /srv (for lack of a better place on the file system hierarchy) and use symlinks out of each user's home directory to point to their documents under that dir, thus:
/home/joe/documents -> /srv/joe/documents
/home/joe/music -> /srv/joe/music
/home/mary/documents -> /srv/mary/documents
/home/bill/documents -> /srv/bill/documents

Or is there a better way?
robinclark

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by robinclark »

First off, thanks to Fred for the original post, and to everybody else for pitching in so far. I've played around with Ubuntu before but I'm really looking forward to going all-in with Mint.

I've read through most of this thread for good measure (n00b alert), and If I could I'd like to ask for your advice relating to a new install on my shiny new laptop :D

My setup:
Hard drives; primary - 30GB mSATA SSD, secondary - 320GB standard drive
RAM; 4GB
FYI its a Thinkpad Edge E320

Objective:
- Mint 12 x64 installed on primary, using separate partitions for data on secondary
- Keep & shrink pre-installed Win7 on secondary as a fall back in case I'm having a bad Linux day and need to get something done :wink:.

From Fred's advice I've devised this plan:

Primary:
swap ----Formatted as swap ----- 2 Gig.
/ ----------Formatted as ext4 ------14 Gig.

Secondary:
swap ---- Formatted as swap ---- 2 Gig.
WIn7 Partition ----NTFS ----30 Gig.
Data Partition1 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data
Data Partition2 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data
Data Partition3 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data

##

Is that a good way forward?
mintybits

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by mintybits »

@robinclark

Hi. I haven't read fred's advice but I would do it this way:

Primary:
/ 30GB ext4 (whole drive)

Secondary:
Win7 50GB NTFS
Swap 4GB
Data Partition1 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data
Data Partition2 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data
Data Partition3 ----Formatted as ext4 -----sized for data

1. No need for swap space on the SSD unless you need really fast swap. You have bags of RAM so, normally, swap space hardly ever gets used.
2. I'd give Win7 a lot of space if you are going to use it much. I think the basic install consumes near 15GB and Win7 won't be able to use your ext4 partitions.
3. Install Mint12 all on the SSD. Then mount the HDD partitions at boot in fstab and create symbolic links between /home/you/ and the data partitions as appropriate. Eg: you might link /home/you/Music to one of the data partitions.
4. I'd be inclined to put Win7 in a primary partition and the rest in an extended partition.
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Lumikki
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Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:21 pm

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by Lumikki »

I have my Linux Mint 12 (64bit) cinnamon fully on SSD.

I created only / (30GB ext4) and 4GB swap as I'm only user. How ever swap isn't even used at all, ever. I have 2TB Raid-1 NAS for personal data and media files.
I also mounted NAS with nfs to my Mint users home directory. So, they are there like any other folder, if I need to access them.
I keep on SSD only dayly used files, rest I store in NAS, if I think they are worth of keeping.
It's pretty easy to do reinstalling OS, as there isn't much personal data at all to be saved.

Not sure what I should do differently?
Last edited by Lumikki on Wed Feb 08, 2012 1:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Asus P7P55D, i5 750 2.6Ghz, 8GB DDR3, GeForce 750Ti, 80GB Intel SSD, Dell 1600x1200, Dual boot, Linux Mint 19.3 Cinnamon, Windows 7
Stokestack

How do you change the partitions?

Post by Stokestack »

I'm running the installer from the DVD, and doing the custom (something else) option.

I can't get the thing to actually let me set up a partitioning scheme. It'll let me delete partitions but not change them (although "change" is an option and it pretends to let you).

If I delete all partitions and then add one, it ignores the size I specify and makes it the size of the whole disk. After that, I can't change anything.

How does one use this thing? Thanks!

Gavin
haemocoel

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by haemocoel »

Thank you for the complex information.
I read and re search a lot just to find the basic simple beginning information.
Yet nobody can relay , basic information.
cat = meow.
pretty basic.
i understand software / programs are built in layers.
why cannot any one just spit out the information as it is.
Thank you
tonybad

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by tonybad »

thank Fred!
your words are wise,sage
python134r

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by python134r »

Great thread, alot of information for me but good solid working info that to learn from others experience is greatly appreciated as opposed to learning the hard way "trial and error".

Thanx to all......

Rich g 8)
MoroccanMint

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by MoroccanMint »

Thank you so much Fred, this post was of great help. It's amazing how 4.5 years past and the thread keeps getting replies. I read them all!

I have a new laptop, 64bit, 4GB RAM and one 750 GB HD. I will install Mint 13 Cinnamon 64bit. It will be the only OS in this computer, no Windows, dual boot or whatsoever. I will be working mostly with pdf and office suite files. I know I will eventually put the system to sleep and hibernate, not often but I will. So I was thinking of this scheme, but still have some doubts:

/ - formatted ext4 - 12gb
/swap - formatted swap - 4gb
/home - formatted ext4 - 50gb
unallocated 714gb (will progressively be added as needed, in new big partitions)

I'm not sure about the ext4, nor whether these partitions should be all primary, extended or what. Any ideas or tips for improvement?

Thanks to all.
bigj231

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by bigj231 »

On new hardware, I like to use a GPT partition table, so that all of the partitions can be primary. It makes the partitioning simpler, as well as allowing for UEFI boot.
I would also advocate using EXT4 for everything except swap, unless you know that you need something different.
In my experience, several smaller partitions is only useful when your system breaks. I have seen benchmark results both ways, and the difference in my actual usage is minimal. The extra time spent setting everything up won't pay for itself until you have to reinstall or update. Even then you should have backups of your data that you can use so the difference is moot.
I ALWAYS use a separate /home partition so that I only have to reinstall Mint and my programs. I can reinstall a broken system back in less than 6 hours.
Finally, If you are unsure about Mint or Linux in general, install it in a virtual machine. That way if something breaks or you don't like it you don't have any issues removing or repairing it.
sarahr

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by sarahr »

Greetings -

I have read with interest Fred's initial post and the many that have followed. I've been running Linux Mint for about a month now on a Lenovo laptop (i5, 8 GB RAM) that started life running Windows 7/8. I bought the machine to experiment with Mint, though, and I'm not a Windows user as I find it to generally crap (indeed, it broke itself trying to apply updates to 8 and I haven't bothered with it since).

I purchased a new HDD for this machine, going from 500 GB to 750 GB and a 7200 RPM drive. This is a brand-new drive, not formatted and no OS, that I received today. For the past few hours, my friend (who has exactly the same machine and exactly the same new drive) have been struggling to get our custom installs of Linux Mint 14 Cinammon back up and running, with no luck.

The problem comes in the area of the bootloader, which seems to not be able to be installed no matter what we do. First off, here is our drive partition map:

/dev/sda1 200 MB ext2 /boot
/dev/sda2 2048 MB swap /swap
/dev/sda3 12288 MB ext 3 /
/dev/sda4 512000 MB ext 3 /home
/dev/sda5 10240 MB NTFS /shared
/dev/sda6 (remainder) NTFS /windows

We initially have set this up using GParted. There is no Windows install on here, but we created the two NTFS partitions in the event that we might someday put it back on.

When we run the install from the Live CD, all is well until the bootloader comes into play, at which time we are told that the install has failed on /dev/sda . We tried to overcome this by choosing /dev/sda1 (where we'd created this little boot partition), but that failed, too.

Most recently, I've tried running the Ubuntu Boot-Repair utility, which, from the looks of it, is telling me I have no GRUB installed anywhere on this machine. That would certainly cause a problem. But I had attempted to install Grub from the command line before running the utlity, although I guess that didn't work or save itself (as I'm booted off the CD).

This is about where my knowledge level encounters a brick wall. I'll include the results of the Boot-Repair utility here, for your persual; please click on this URL to learn more. http://paste2.org/p/2619972

Any advice? We're going nuts here. Thanks.
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tdockery97
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Location: Mt. Angel, Oregon

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by tdockery97 »

@sarahr:

If you are using a machine with EFI instead of standard BIOS your problem is that there is not a normal MBR on a GPT formatted drive. A BIOS boot partition must be created in order for Grub to be correctly installed. I ran into the same problem when I was setting up the dual boot on my new laptop with Windows 8. At first I tried to set up a partition for Mint and ran into the same problem with Grub not installing correctly. I solved it by selecting to install side by side with Windows. The installer then on it's own created the BIOS boot partition and installed Grub and all was well.

There may be other effective methods. I'm just saying that this is what ended up working for me.
Mint Cinnamon 20.1
sarahr

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by sarahr »

Okay, this is helpful information. Basically, I can't have this OS on here without having Windows on here first, huh?

What is the cause of that? Something hardware-related that is baked into this laptop? It really creates a feeling of profound frustration in me. I'm trying to get away from having to have windows puking all over here, but I guess that's not going to be feasible. The closest I can come is probably installing Windows, then Linux Mint, then nuke the Windows install without nuking the MBR?

Thanks for replying. We're tired and crabby and getting frustrated.
sarahr

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by sarahr »

Looks like (U)EFI is most likely the culprit here. Here's a link discussing the problem with a Kubuntu install.

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthread ... t-past-EFI
sarahr

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by sarahr »

Okay, so the two of us have things working now. Here's what we did:

We rebooted off the CD and repartitioned the drive, NOT using Gparted this time, but the partitioner on the installer CD.

We left a good deal of the disk unpartitioned/unused. Previously, we had created two partitions and formatted them as NTFS - /shared and /windows . This time, we had neither.

Reinstalled Linux-Mint.

Ta-da. It worked. So, either it hated Gparted, it hated having a partition called /windows, or both. I think the EFI being involved is likely.

Thanks so much. Now, any suggestions for how to move user directory from the old disk, now set up in a USB case, to my new installation?
koll apraas

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by koll apraas »

Hello there,
I am a linux newbie totally ignorant of CLI (mea culpa) I prefer to test and/or taste various distros such as slackware, freebsd, debian, ubuntu and not necessarily in that order, and maybe finally settle on the best one/s (well, the one/s that will be best for me that is).

Given below is my planned dual boot (wndws and Linux Mint Debian) disk partitioning scheme, which I already successfully (relatively) adopted in a vm for about a year or so (and am going to implement into a PC) and that I want to modify so that I can make the dual into a multi boot with another (maybe even more) linux distro -- Fedora -- as well.

wndows 30gb ntfs primary partition
/boot ------- 500mb ext2 primary partition
extended partition
/ ------- 25gb ext4 (Linux Mint Debian)
/usr ------- 20gb ext4
/opt ------- 4gb ext4
/srv ------- 8gb ext4
/var ------- 4gb ext4
/home ------- 30gb ext4
swap ------- 3gb
200gb or so remaining -- used for storage purposes ntfs primary partition.

In the current scenario both OS's are on a single hard drive, and I want to add (if possible) the third (probably more) -- Fedora -- OS as well into the extra 200gb space lying around. I had read somewhere that I can use the /boot partition as a common partition, but I wanted to know if any of the other above listed partitions can also be used in a common manner by the third OS (Fedora) (and/or fourth OS) that is going to be added. That is can I maybe make it into

wndows 30gb ntfs primary partition
/boot ------- 500mb ext2 primary partition
extended partition
/ ------- 25gb ext4 (Linux Mint Debian)
/usr ------- 20gb ext4
/opt ------- 4gb ext4
/srv ------- 8gb ext4
/var ------- 4gb ext4
/home ------- 30gb ext4
swap ------- 3gb
extended partition
/ ------- 25gb ext4 (Fedora)
/ ------- 25gb ext4 (Ubuntu/OpenSuse/other)
140gb or so remaining -- used for storage purposes ntfs primary partition.

thank you for your time
koll apraas
P.S. - Sorry about the formatting, and the length.
Calypso7

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by Calypso7 »

Wow. Just... wow.

I was excited about making the switch to Linux but now after reading this thread, not so much. One thing I most likely won't have to worry about is a swap partition because from what I've gathered from this thread, that is for people who use hibernation. I don't so that's one thing off the list I won't have to deal with. As for everything else... :?

This is my netbook's info.
Intel Atom N2600(1.6 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache)
1 GB DDR3 Memory (I may be upgrading to 2 GB in the future)
320 GB HDD

After our PC crashed a few years ago that caused us to lose everything, I've made it a habit to save all of my info(which isn't much) onto USB sticks so when I do keep something onto the hard drive, it's just a copy from my USB stick. I would only save things like some text documents, images, some games with the emulator(they are small files) and maybe some music although I would be tempted to give Thunderbird a try. Exactly how should I go about setting up partitions for what little info I save? This is so confusing. :?
guerin-Tyron

Re: Considerations before you install

Post by guerin-Tyron »

It's great that I read this before I start installing linux. I hope the extended partition works for me.
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