dual boot pre-installation thoughts

[aguila]

Hi everyone,

I have re-setup my desktop box with a dual-boot partition scheme for XP and PCLOS.

My plan is to have one central partition for the user data and keep all the settings in the OS's partition. So I did the following:

# I'm not at that box now, but I could provide an fdisk output later

HDD has 250 GB.

1. primary partition NTFS for XP (50GB)
2. primary partition NTFS /data
3. extended partition containing (200 GB)
    3.1. swap
    3.2. / (ext4)
    3.3. backup partition

Instead of having specified folders (e.g. "documents") in the XP and Linux /home partition, I'ld create links to those folders on the /data partition, so both OS's use the same source for user data. That would also make it easier to reinstall and have all settings in /home reset to a virgin state. So far, so good.

Now, after reading some threads about partitioning here during the last days, I have some doubts:

1. I read that a cluttered (fragmented) NTFS partition can slow down Linux to a snail's pace.

  Therefore, is an automounted NTFS partition a good idea?
      If XP isn't even used, would Linux fragment the disk also?

2. Is my partitioning scheme making sense or should I just start over with a new scheme?

Thanks for any hints.

Aguila

[7272andy]

Could you format partition 2 as ext3 and the install the file system support into windows?

[aguila]

That scares me off more than Linux reading/writing NTFS  

Here's the output of fdisk -l -u=cylinders:

Code:

Platte /dev/sda: 250.1 GByte, 250059350016 Byte
255 Köpfe, 63 Sektoren/Spur, 30401 Zylinder
Einheiten = Zylinder von 16065 × 512 = 8225280 Bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000001

   Gerät  boot.     Anfang        Ende     Blöcke   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *            1         6527    52428096    7  HPFS/NTFS                # XP partition
/dev/sda2            6528       16971     83886080    7  HPFS/NTFS             # /data partition
/dev/sda3           16971       30402   107883520    5  Erweiterte                 # Extended
/dev/sda5           16971       17297     2621440   82  Linux Swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           17298       21214    31457280   83  Linux                         # PCLOS / (root) partition
/dev/sda7           21214       26436    41943040   83  Linux                         # backup partition
/dev/sda8           26436       30402    31857664   83  Linux                        # spare partition

What do you think?

[7272andy]

Seems fair enough, my own reads in a similar fashion;

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb855c282

    Device Boot      Start           End      Blocks       Id  System
/dev/sda1                 1          2611      20972826  83  Linux
/dev/sda2   *        2612         7571      39841200    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3             7572         8876     10482412+ 83  Linux
/dev/sda4             8877       38913    241272202+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5             8877       37869   232886209+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            37870       38913      8385898+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5b6ac646

   Device  Boot      Start           End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1                 1          2611     20972826     b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2            2612        11749     73400985     7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3           11750       38913    218194830    83  Linux


I must admit I very rarely use the windows partitions with windows, and have not noticed any of the reported problems myself