Partition question [SOLVED]

[agmg]

Last night I decided to get rid of Windows from my laptop as I almost never use it anymore and it wastes valuable space (I think this is a Windows killing feature   ).
So I backup my data and wiped my disk so I can perform a clean install. I'm using a liveUSB of TR 2012.06 full and Disk Drake for partitioning.

My plan was to create the following partitions:

1. /root
2. /swap
3. /home

and leave about 50gigs free for future use.

Question no1:
Should I create separate /boot and /usr partitions? Is there a huge benefit by doing this?
Question no2:
My laptop has 4GB of DDR3 memory. Is a swap partition really necessary? I have used a 4GB swap partition in all my installs so far and it is rarely used by the O/S.
Question no3:
Creating the first partition for /root takes the number /dev/sda1 (primary)
Creating the second partition for /swap takes the number /dev/sda5 (extended)
Creating the third partition for /home takes the number /dev/sda6 (extended)
Shouldn't that be sda2? I tried to set the second and third partitions as primary through Disk Drake's advanced settings but I still get the same numbering.
Of course it isn't something that causes trouble or very important, I was just wondering why is this happening.

[Archie]

Last night I decided to get rid of Windows from my laptop as I almost never use it anymore and it wastes valuable space (I think this is a Windows killing feature   ).
So I backup my data and wiped my disk so I can perform a clean install. I'm using a liveUSB of TR 2012.06 full and Disk Drake for partitioning.

My plan was to create the following partitions:

1. /root
2. /swap
3. /home

and leave about 50gigs free for future use.

Question no1:
Should I create separate /boot and /usr partitions? Is there a huge benefit by doing this?
Question no2:
My laptop has 4GB of DDR3 memory. Is a swap partition really necessary? I have used a 4GB swap partition in all my installs so far and it is rarely used by the O/S.
Question no3:
Creating the first partition for /root takes the number /dev/sda1 (primary)
Creating the second partition for /swap takes the number /dev/sda5 (extended)
Creating the third partition for /home takes the number /dev/sda6 (extended)
Shouldn't that be sda2? I tried to set the second and third partitions as primary through Disk Drake's advanced settings but I still get the same numbering.
Of course it isn't something that causes trouble or very important, I was just wondering why is this happening.

Answer to Q1.

If you plan on installing other OS on other partitions, a separate /boot would be preferable. However, if you are planning to use the laptop with a dedicated OS, I don't see why you need to have a separate /boot or /usr. Just a separate /home partition (and of course, swap) would be ideal.

Answer to Q2.
You can never be so sure. In these days of cheap, affordable Gbs of RAM, one hardly uses the SWAP. However, there might come a time when you might need it.

Answer to Q3:
Yes, you are absolutely right. Your extended /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 are on /dev/sda2 which is a primary partition. Unless you create three primary partitions and assign those to /home and swap, the numbering isn't really that much to concern yourself with. It'll all be there.

[Bald Brick]

Last night I decided to get rid of Windows from my laptop as I almost never use it anymore and it wastes valuable space (I think this is a Windows killing feature   ). So I backup my data and wiped my disk so I can perform a clean install. I'm using a liveUSB of TR 2012.06 full and Disk Drake for partitioning.

My plan was to create the following partitions:

1. /root
2. /swap
3. /home

You should not create a /root partition. But you do need a root partition. Is it confusing?

/root with the slash is the home directory of the root user. (All other home directories are subdirectories of /home.)

The root partition you need is the global one, called Root in Dolphin. In the filesystem hierarchy it's just shown as / and all other folders are subfolders under it.

and leave about 50gigs free for future use.

Question no1:
Should I create separate /boot and /usr partitions? Is there a huge benefit by doing this?

You should not create a separate /usr partition unless space considerations force you to keep /usr on another drive. Having a separate /usr partition on the same hard disk as the rest of your system is just uneconomical squandering of your disk space.

A /boot partition? I don't think you need one, but it could be useful under certain circumstances. Old-Polack has explained when in a very old thread.

Question no2:
My laptop has 4GB of DDR3 memory. Is a swap partition really necessary? I have used a 4GB swap partition in all my installs so far and it is rarely used by the O/S.

Question no3:
Creating the first partition for /root takes the number /dev/sda1 (primary)
Creating the second partition for /swap takes the number /dev/sda5 (extended)
Creating the third partition for /home takes the number /dev/sda6 (extended)
Shouldn't that be hda2?

No it shouldn't. The numbering of logical partitions starts with 5, and not making those two partitions primary gives you a much more flexible setup if you want to make changes later. Note that strictly speaking /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 won't be extended partitions; they will be logical partitions within an extended partition (probably /dev/sda2).

I tried to set the second and third partitions as primary through Disk Drake's advanced settings but I still get the same numbering.
Of course it isn't something that causes trouble or very important, I was just wondering why is this happening.

[Phil]

Salvage windows into Virtualbox for occasional use?
getvirtualbox in synaptic
(would take up a load of space in /home though)

[Bald Brick]

Answer to Q2.
You can never be so sure. In these days of cheap, affordable Gbs of RAM, one hardly uses the SWAP. However, there might come a time when you might need it.

Additionally, take a look at this post: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,69910.0.html

[agmg]

First of all I want to thank you all for the immediate and accurate posts that answered all my questions. You were very friendly and helpful as always. I'm proud to be in this forum  

Now I have one more question about this:

Answer to Q1.

If you plan on installing other OS on other partitions, a separate /boot would be preferable. However, if you are planning to use the laptop with a dedicated OS, I don't see why you need to have a separate /boot or /usr. Just a separate /home partition (and of course, swap) would be ideal.

If I create a separate /boot and install another OS in the future, should I use it for the second OS too?

[Archie]

First of all I want to thank you all for the immediate and accurate posts that answered all my questions. You were very friendly and helpful as always. I'm proud to be in this forum  

Now I have one more question about this:

Answer to Q1.

If you plan on installing other OS on other partitions, a separate /boot would be preferable. However, if you are planning to use the laptop with a dedicated OS, I don't see why you need to have a separate /boot or /usr. Just a separate /home partition (and of course, swap) would be ideal.

If I create a separate /boot and install another OS in the future, should I use it for the second OS too?

I suppose you could provided that it is on a separate folder. IMO the idea of a separate /boot (since it will be the one saved on the MBR) is to chainload other OS even if you have to reinstall your / partition. This way you won't lose your ability to boot on whichever OS is installed.

I suppose it would be different from having your /boot on your / especially when you chainload another OS and if something happens to your system, you won't be able to boot with the other unless you run grub from the livecd.

Jess ... I'm blabbering. I better get some sleep. I think BB will explain it better. I'm outta here. Good night!

[Bald Brick]

First of all I want to thank you all for the immediate and accurate posts that answered all my questions. You were very friendly and helpful as always. I'm proud to be in this forum  

Now I have one more question about this:

Answer to Q1.

If you plan on installing other OS on other partitions, a separate /boot would be preferable. However, if you are planning to use the laptop with a dedicated OS, I don't see why you need to have a separate /boot or /usr. Just a separate /home partition (and of course, swap) would be ideal.

If I create a separate /boot and install another OS in the future, should I use it for the second OS too?

I suppose you could provided that it is on a separate folder. IMO the idea of a separate /boot (since it will be the one saved on the MBR) is to chainload other OS even if you have to reinstall your / partition. This way you won't lose your ability to boot on whichever OS is installed.

I suppose it would be different from having your /boot on your / especially when you chainload another OS and if something happens to your system, you won't be able to boot with the other unless you run grub from the livecd.

Jess ... I'm blabbering. I better get some sleep. I think BB will explain it better. I'm outta here. Good night!

I think you explained it very well.

For an example see this post (again by Old-Polack): http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,97974.msg832538.html#msg832538.

[T6]

my two machines have the same partition, one ntfs with xp, one / and one swap

have more partitions, for example a separated /home could have a couple benefits but also limits the space given to the other partitions and makes a bit more complicated the whole setup

in more than 5 years using pclinux never found a reason to have more partitions than those 3

[Just17]

I tried to set the second and third partitions as primary through Disk Drake's advanced settings but I still get the same numbering.
Of course it isn't something that causes trouble or very important, I was just wondering why is this happening.

If you create three standard primary partitions ONLY, then you should get the numbering you expect .....  such as  sda1, sda2, sda3 ......  and you would then have one more primary partition number which could be used to create an Extended partition covering all the remaining space.
In that Extended partition you can then create Logical partitions as required.
The first Logical partition will always be sda5 ....  regardless the number allotted to the Extended partition.

For you to see partitions numbered sda5 & above, they must be Logical and not Primary partitions.

Hope that makes sense 

[Yankee]

my two machines have the same partition, one ntfs with xp, one / and one swap

have more partitions, for example a separated /home could have a couple benefits but also limits the space given to the other partitions and makes a bit more complicated the whole setup

in more than 5 years using pclinux never found a reason to have more partitions than those 3

Hi,

I have read all kinds of manuals advising different partitions for different
directories, but the above is what I would use and have been using for
the several years I have been using Linux.   No complaints or performance
issues of any kind.   A positive remark is that it is very easy to archive a single
partition that includes everything.   It just works.

A separate "DATA" partition is good for large storage of whatever, and that's
also easy to backup and update when it's only contains other non-system files
and directories.

And I never make any partition on my machine over 50 or 100 GB.   They just
take too long to backup. 

Have a good one.

FF

[Bald Brick]

I think BB will explain it better. I'm outta here. Good night!

I still can't explain anything better than Archie, but I want to add something:

Historically the most important reason for using a separate /boot partition was that for the entire kernel to be accessible at boot on early PCs it had to reside on the first 1024 cylinders of the hard disk. To ascertain that it did you could move it to a small /boot partition that you created as the first one on the drive. Needless to say, this reason has lost all relevancy a long time ago.

Then there were bootloaders that couldn't always read the main filesystem, and because of that needed a /boot partition of their own. This has never been relevant in PCLinuxOS.

Today the chainloading of several operating systems or distributions remains the only valid reason I can think of - and valid only if you do a lot of switching between distributions.

And if you create a /boot partition, don't make it unnecessarily large. According to some of O-P's posts 100MB is more than you'll need.

[agmg]

Once more I want to thank you for your guidance.
The force is strong with this one... 

I went with the 1 primary 1 extended with two logicals
/
/swap
/home

and left an unpartitioned space at the end of the disk, just in case 

I'm marking it as "solved" 

[T6]

how much gbs did you gave to swap?

[agmg]

4GBs