[Solved]Manual Partitioning

[SilverNexus]

The LMDE installer says I need to mount my partitions to /target. Does it mean I need to have a /target/boot if I want my own boot partition for Linux, for example, or is "target" substituted for the mount point in question? Since there are already folders for boot, home, and whatnot in /, I would assume it would be the former option, but I don't want to screw up my Windows dual-boot to find out.

Also, would I do anything special for swap at this time, or is that just mounted in /etc/fstab?

[SilverNexus]

Okay, I mounted my Linux partitions into the /target folder. This folder, however, does not show up in Caja from the live DVD. Am I doing this right?

EDIT: Found this tutorial on how to partition for LMDE. Its useful if you can ignore all the ads .
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2010/09/18/di ... nt-debian/

[niowluka]

/target just means 'target folder', it is not an actual folder. You normally will not have a /target folder in Linux.

And please do not follow the tutorial to the letter. There is no such thing as 'the one best partitioning'. It all depends on your hardware and personal preferences: whats your hdd capacity, RAM, what you will be using it for etc.

As a rule of thumb:
1) / (root) of 20GB should be enough
2) swap should be 1x - 2x your RAM, although I run at 4GB RAM and 0 swap
3) /var as separate partition is recommended (<10GB)
4) /home as a separate partition is very highly recommended, it will save you time when upgrading, moving to another distro, etc

[Monsta]

This manual partitioning is only needed in special cases, e.g. when you want to install LMDE across more than one physical drive. In most situations, you just need to choose the default option which will show you the list of partitions right in the GUI.

[SilverNexus]

This manual partitioning is only needed in special cases, e.g. when you want to install LMDE across more than one physical drive. In most situations, you just need to choose the default option which will show you the list of partitions right in the GUI.

Interesting. The installer gave me the impression the default setting would use the whole disk.

EDIT: Upon further use, however, I see this is the case. Good to know that I don't have to do as much work as I thought to get the install ready.

And please do not follow the tutorial to the letter. There is no such thing as 'the one best partitioning'. It all depends on your hardware and personal preferences: whats your hdd capacity, RAM, what you will be using it for etc.

I usually use my own setup (a boot partition, a root partition, and a home partition), and I was trying a different partition size setup (before, my /home was almost full, while / and /boot were mostly empty) with less swap, since I rarely use swap w/ 16 GB RAM.

Now I'm thinking I'll try out the /var partition, too, while I'm at it (can't hurt too much to experiment ).

[niowluka]

This manual partitioning is only needed in special cases, e.g. when you want to install LMDE across more than one physical drive. In most situations, you just need to choose the default option which will show you the list of partitions right in the GUI.

Interesting. The installer gave me the impression the default setting would use the whole disk.

Unless you're installing Mint on a new, empty disc, I would discourage use of auto partitioning. It is a mere script, it cannot detect all possible scenarios, and you will find plenty of threads here with people loosing their systems, data, etc.

And please do not follow the tutorial to the letter. There is no such thing as 'the one best partitioning'. It all depends on your hardware and personal preferences: whats your hdd capacity, RAM, what you will be using it for etc.

I usually use my own setup (a boot partition, a root partition, and a home partition), and I was trying a different partition size setup (before, my /home was almost full, while / and /boot were mostly empty) with less swap, since I rarely use swap w/ 16 GB RAM.

Now I'm thinking I'll try out the /var partition, too, while I'm at it (can't hurt too much to experiment ).

Absolutely. In some distros it is also good to have a separate /usr, while I think in Mint separate /boot is not really needed (although I have it as well).

[SilverNexus]

Unless you're installing Mint on a new, empty disc, I would discourage use of auto partitioning. It is a mere script, it cannot detect all possible scenarios, and you will find plenty of threads here with people loosing their systems, data, etc.

The default option actually doesn't auto-partition. It brings up the partition table and lets you choose which partitions to mount, and where to mount them.

As far as data loss, I back up my whole system in case of unexpected problems, even if I'm not touching that partition.