Installing over another distro

[Zwopper]

...well...
If you have a separate home partition I recommend that you keep that one, otherwise create one.
/ 10GB
Swap Your ram size x 2
The rest /home
That's my setup.

[MagnusB]

If you got 512 MB of RAM or more, do NOT use 2xRAM, that is an extremely conservative thumb rule which only apply to computers with low RAM. I generally use 1 GB swap on my 2 GB RAM computer, but I will reduce this to 512 MB when I rearrange it the next time.
As for using a separate /home partition, I would rather recommend a setup Fred came with.
When manually editing your partition, set the mount point of the /home partition to /home/username/Data (or similar)
That way you don't get any of the settings folders on that partition and can easily keep it without any issues when upgrading or switching distro.

[Zwopper]

If you got 512 MB of RAM or more, do NOT use 2xRAM, that is an extremely conservative thumb rule which only apply to computers with low RAM. I generally use 1 GB swap on my 2 GB RAM computer, but I will reduce this to 512 MB when I rearrange it the next time.
As for using a separate /home partition, I would rather recommend a setup Fred came with.
When manually editing your partition, set the mount point of the /home partition to /home/username/Data (or similar)
That way you don't get any of the settings folders on that partition and can easily keep it without any issues when upgrading or switching distro.

Well if one is planning on use any ACPI functions ie sleep hibarnate etc. ram size x 2 makes it easier and faster.

[MagnusB]

x2 is still conservative... You only need larger swap than RAM if you want to use hibernate, you can even use it with less swap than RAM. x1.5 should be plentiful if you want those functions, and I personally don't use them as they are still a bit buggy in Linux (and I usually have no need for em as well).

[Zwopper]

x2 is still conservative... You only need larger swap than RAM if you want to use hibernate, you can even use it with less swap than RAM. x1.5 should be plentiful if you want those functions, and I personally don't use them as they are still a bit buggy in Linux (and I usually have no need for em as well).

Once again personal taste and needs I guess.
I only use a laptop that I dock, both at work and at home, so instant hibernation is a must, and it works like a charm, no data loss or reboot as of yet.
This is how 80% of the people at my office work, so like I said, it's a matter of personal taste and needs.

[Fred]

Wesdog,

The reason for keeping the swap size to a minimum is for speed. The smaller the partition, the faster it is. It really servers no purpose to have a 2 Gig swap with 512 MB ram. It doesn't hurt anything except the speed when using swap. As far as the hibernation load the only thing you save with hibernation is the ram contents so 1 Gig of swap is plenty to save the contents of ram plus any swap that might have been in use when hibernation was invoked. That just shouldn't be an issue.

i have some reading for you if you want to take the time to explore your options further. Look at the link below and follow the links in that thread.

http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopi ... 18&t=11502

Fred

[MagnusB]

Linux handles partition differently than Windows (Fred is the resident partition table expert, but I'll try to explain).
First Linux uses a root partition mounted at /, while all other partitions (except swap) will be mounted in a folder within the root partition. So if you set a partition mount point to /home/username/Data, the folder will exist within the root partition, but all data stored in that folder will be on another partition, if that make sense...

[Zwopper]

...but all data stored in that folder will be on another partition, if that make sense...

Or on another physical drive if you want...

[MagnusB]

Yes, but keeping these settings can also cause unforeseen issues and complications, especially when upgrading. Or sharing a /home partition with another distro.

[Fred]

Sakonim,

It is easy enough to backup your /home config files to your data partition. You can even use rsync or "unison" to keep your backup file up to date.

Then when you reinstall you can move the config files you wish to keep, like .mozzila, which hold all your bookmarks, back into the new /home.

Fred