Guidance required for best practice Partition required for Mint .

[vgdoshi]

Hello

I am going to install "linuxmint-18.1-mate-64bit" on my dell laptop having 500GB. I am confused as in RHEL it doesnt allow to create more than 4 primary partition.
In RHEL we normally create 3 primary + 1 extended & rest partition as logical in that extended partition.

I am planning to use Mint for running application based on jboss & postgresql

In Mint I want to create separate partition for all mount points (also i can use 100GB from my existing HDD for Mint), I will be creating following partitions.
/ approx 10GB
/boot approx 2GB
/home approx 5GB
swap approx 8GB (laptop has 4GB RAM)
/tmp approx 5GB
/var approx 10GB
/usr approx 20GB
/opt approx 5GB

Now I came to know a mandatory partition also needs to be created in Mint ie /boot/efi which dont know the purpose but i will make it of 2GB

My query is which partitions i should keep as primary & which partition should i create as logical.

Kindly assist

Regards
Vishal

[Cosmo.]

In Mint I want to create separate partition for all mount points

Why? You asked for "best practice", such cluttering of partitions is usually far away from that goal.
Usually you need the system partition (= / ) with about 20 to 30 GB and swap (size depends from the unknown amount of RAM); a separate /home (the rest of the space) is recommended, but with only 5 GB I wonder, if you plan to store near to never user data.

[vgdoshi]

Hello

I assume that if we make single partitions under / of 20 to 30 GB and due to some reason if /usr utilizes all 20 GB ,than what ?
I have given /home 5gb as i will be having no data in user folder.

Regards
Vishal

[Cosmo.]

My system is more than 2.5 years old and /usr has a size of 5.5 GB. Besides that; a separate partition for /usr does not circumvent the unlikely case, that it grows to such a tremendous size.

BTW: My /var folder has 6.8 GB (so a little bit more than /usr), but you want to give it only the half size of /usr.

At the end: You are likely maneuvering into self-made problems. Those will not appear at once, but if you proceed as planned and you fall int them you should remember my warning.

[Lemongrass38]

I've never seen such an OS that has so many partitions.

My HDD is split to:
/ 30 GB for main OS
(60 GB for 2 other distros)
400 GB data
10 GB swap.

This is quite a common way to use your OS. Nowadays, the / partition should have a little more space like 40...50 GB to make sure it fits.

Then you can store all your data in the data partition and symlink all to your home folder. My home folder consists of .files .folders, links to my data partitions and a few actual folders.

What .Cosmo said is quite likely to happen. Also note that Mint can handle partitions good enough only if they are not very full (about 80% is still okay).

[Pierre]

yep, that way too many partitions,
- you only will need 2 -3 partitions, for that 100Gb area.

maybe:
- 10Gb = / root
- rest of HDD = / home -- if you want that separate.
1 -2 Gb = /swap & ~8Gb if you wish to use hibernation.

you don't need anything more complicated than that.

[Habitual]

Code: Select all

/         approx 10GB
/boot   approx 2GB
/home approx 5GB
swap  approx 8GB  (laptop has 4GB RAM)
/tmp approx 5GB
/var  approx 10GB
/usr approx 20GB
/opt approx 5GB

Try defaults.
/home approx 5GB Nope.

That's so old school, I have to ask.
Someone who can't partition or size one correctly need that many?
Best Practice for what? How about defaults?
Old "best practices"? That layout resembles Linux in 2004, or earlier or even Unix or a *BSD

Cosmo. is right.
Best practice? "less is more". I think you are over thinking it.
Try defaults? Get a feel for the process. It may not go right the first time, but you'll get the feel for it.
You can always redo it in less time too!

Start Here:

Code: Select all

25 G  /
5 G for /swap
Rest for /home

My guidance is "severe"
Try defaults.

Too many partitions is a handicap should you need to go in and "move something around" later.
on that hoopty laptop with 4G of ram. Fewer partitions means gPartEd can utilize faster operations later, if necessary

[Pjotr]

Only / and swap, and if you wish (not for me!) also /home. So two partitions, maybe three. Maximum.

More than that, is an unnecessary layer of complication and, most importantly, also an extremely inefficient distribution of disk space. What you're intending is just plain crazy. Don't do it.

[Lemongrass38]

Another thing you can consider: if you plan to use multiple GNU/Linux distributions, a separate data partition might be better (because you won't mix your home folders and .files and .folders that contain settings). For a single OS, a separate /home might be better.

[vgdoshi]

Ok Thanks for your replies ...I will try it out with less partitions.

Thanks all

[Netdude21]

I would follow the steps in this video: https://youtu.be/DwqP_4vlOP4

All you need is four primary partitions, like this:

/dev/sda1 ext2 /boot = 512 MB
/dev/sda2 ext4 / = 15-20 GB (15000 MB - 20000 MB) there is no limit to this, I used 20GB and so far, so good.
/dev/sda3 SWAP (4GB of RAM or less, same size as the RAM, plus a little bit more, 4100 MB. 8 GB of RAM or more, 2 GB, make a 4 GB Partition) and mark it as swap area.
The last partition, /dev/sda4 ext4 /home and use the rest of the drive.

This works for me but I would suggest that you try it in a virtual machine BEFORE you do anything to your system.

[mr_raider]

Hello

I am going to install "linuxmint-18.1-mate-64bit" on my dell laptop having 500GB. I am confused as in RHEL it doesnt allow to create more than 4 primary partition.
In RHEL we normally create 3 primary + 1 extended & rest partition as logical in that extended partition.

Just to clarify, this not a limitation of RHEL, but rather of any MBR partition table. A GPT partition table can have multiple primary partitions. Furthermore, Mint/Ubuntu can be installed to a GPT partitioned disk, and Mint/Ubuntu can boot GPT disks in UEFI mode or legacy mode, depending on how the install was done.

My guess is RHEL only does MBR installs.

[mr_raider]

Only / and swap, and if you wish (not for me!) also /home. So two partitions, maybe three. Maximum.

More than that, is an unnecessary layer of complication and, most importantly, also an extremely inefficient distribution of disk space. What you're intending is just plain crazy. Don't do it.

A more modern solution is to use one swap and one / partition. Then set your / partition to btrfs system and the installer will by default create two subvolumes @, and @home.

This effectively segregates your home and root file structures, but allows both to coexist on the same partition so you need not worry about predicting space allocation.

Furthermore if you ever want to install a new Mint/Ubuntu OS, you can rename the two subvolumes to something different, and the new install will once again install to @, and @home, leaving your two previous subvolumes intact. You can then revert back to the old subvolumes if desired and essentially recover your old OS that way.

[MintBean]

Another thing you can consider: if you plan to use multiple GNU/Linux distributions, a separate data partition might be better (because you won't mix your home folders and .files and .folders that contain settings). For a single OS, a separate /home might be better.

I'm a big fan of this approach. I just set up symbolic links from my home folder to music, movie etc. folders on my data partition.

[KeyJoo]

/swap ____ [4 Gb]
/ ________ [100 Gb] for system - {Primary partiotion need for Boot loader}
/home ___ [396 Gb] for user data

Vishal, good luck!

[Lemongrass38]

Another thing you can consider: if you plan to use multiple GNU/Linux distributions, a separate data partition might be better (because you won't mix your home folders and .files and .folders that contain settings). For a single OS, a separate /home might be better.

I'm a big fan of this approach. I just set up symbolic links from my home folder to music, movie etc. folders on my data partition.

I have about ~24 symlinks in my home. Even some of my dotfiles are symlinks to the actual dotfiles in my dotfile repo's directory.
A bit off topic, but there's a drawback to this: firejail won't protect files on another partition by default, as I see. Lately there was a "malicious Javascript in Firefox" topic on this forum that was believed to be a malware or ransomware at first. So such a thing might happen in a GNU/Linux system too. For this reason, my KeePassX database is always in my home.

[MintBean]

I have about ~24 symlinks in my home. Even some of my dotfiles are symlinks to the actual dotfiles in my dotfile repo's directory.
A bit off topic, but there's a drawback to this: firejail won't protect files on another partition by default, as I see. Lately there was a "malicious Javascript in Firefox" topic on this forum that was believed to be a malware or ransomware at first. So such a thing might happen in a GNU/Linux system too. For this reason, my KeePassX database is always in my home.

Thanks for the headsup, buddy.